Fractured Hearts
by 7Seabear
Summary: Rika Hayashi, Kaibara's newest transfer from Okinawa, feels like an outsider when she arrives back in Tokyo after six years. Still, following the death of her mother and a strained relationship with her father - it also feels like coming home. Trying to adjust to a new life, Rika is unawares of the shadows that lurk behind her childhood in Tokyo and the new threat on the horizon.
1. Chapter 1

_Beep-Beep-Beep. Beep-Beep-Beep. _

The sound of the alarm clock was rhythmic but painful, broken only by a groan from underneath the bedcovers. Blonde hair spilled over the edges as a hand snaked its way out to reach blindly for the source of the noise and silence it. Fingers met plastic. Searched. Pressed down on the surface.

_Silence._

Rika Hayashi forced herself upright on the futon, heels of her hands pressing into her back as if that might alleviate the discomfort from the previous night's sleep. Two days back in Tokyo and already she was in pain. It wasn't helped by the fact that none of their belongings had been shipped from Okinawa yet, something that her father hadn't been able to explain in the brief intervals he was actually in their new apartment.

Sound from the kitchen indicated he'd stuck around to see her off for her new school year, something that she wasn't even sure she wanted. Since her mother had passed the previous year, their tenuous relationship had dwindled down to small talk and perfunctory announcements.

Like the one he'd made less than a week ago that they were moving back to Tokyo.

Truthfully, it had been a relief for her but Rika suspected her father didn't feel the same. It had been him who had moved them to Okinawa six years previously without explanation. _Him_, who had denied her mother's illness even as she faded away piece by piece while trying to hold her daughter together.

Sighing, Rika pushed herself from the bed and began her new routine. Dress in the uniform that had been hooked over the wardrobe door. Pull her hair into a loose braid over her shoulder. Scream internally. Well no, that last one would have to be put on hold. Kaibara high school couldn't be any worse than all the other schools she'd attended in the past, even if she _was_ two years out of practice. Returning to high school at nineteen felt jarring, the last time she'd set foot in the place being just after her second year had begun. Now she would have to repeat those lessons, that _time_ in an entirely new environment. She'd have to relearn interest in the fickle hearts of her peers. Maybe even try to date. Shuddering, Rika pushed that thought away sharply. High school boys had barely interested her at sixteen. Now, they seemed like an entirely different species to contend with. No, dating could wait until she figured out what she was going to do when she was done with school. Until she met someone who inspired anything other than discomfort in her.

Toying with the collar of her uniform, Rika glanced at a wad of coloured paper on her desk. Considered fulfilling the itch in her fingertips before changing her mind.

It had been her mother's choice the first time around to pull her out for a year. Let them both find a solution for the night terrors she'd had since they'd moved to Okinawa. After everything else, her father hadn't had the heart to send her back. Not that she'd have willingly gone either. Rika had convinced herself that it was enough to show up for a few cram schools and work with Master Chiba. At least until Master Chiba had announced that she didn't want to see the girl darken her doorstep again until she'd gotten her diploma. Cruel, but effective.

Lingering at the door, she hesitated in opening it. Takuto Hayashi wasn't a bad man. He wasn't even a bad father. There were just too many chasms between them to be crossed, empty space only made all the more empty because Kimiko had been the bridge.

"Rika?" His voice was tentative, startling her back from the doorway as she heard the soft knock, "You up? I have to go but breakfast is on the table. I made your favourite."

She didn't answer, instead moving to press her hand to the door in case he opened it. Hesitating. The wait was short, a heavy sigh sounding on the opposite side of the doorway before soft footsteps indicated he'd gone. The click of the heavy front door and the turn of its lock.

Rika gave it five minutes then grabbed her bag and stepped out of her room. Ignoring the rice balls on the table top she grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and left.

Kaibara wouldn't wait, and something new, was better than something painful.


	2. Chapter 2

She'd survived the first half of the first day, blending into the chaotic background of the schools freshman and escaping much notice beyond a few tittering girls as she had stumbled towards an empty desk. Being the new face in the crowd was always difficult, particularly when she was two years older than the bulk of her classmates. So she'd sat at the back of the classroom, hair loosened around the line of her jaw and let the other students form their own assumptions. Kaibara High School wasn't all that much different from where she'd attended in Okinawa but there was a pulsing heart to the place that put her on edge. It was just as likely her own fears rising to make themselves heard and so Rika squashed them down and focused on the motions she needed to get through the day.

Things had almost gone south when a redheaded boy had entered the room, his eyes shifting from bored to dinner-plate wide as he spotted her. Rika too felt a wave of something _familiar_ when she met the almost orange hue of his irises, stiffening with discomfort as he began to approach her - only to be waylaid by another silver haired boy. Whatever it was that had taken place quickly passed as the pair devolved into some kind of spat that was only broken up by their homeroom teacher arriving and demanding silence (along with what Rika had been sure was a threat directed at the redhead.)

Shaking off the strange memory of it, she had resigned herself to eating lunch alone when a classmate of hers approached.

"Hayashi right?" The girl asked. She was tall, blonde and sizing Rika up like she was her next meal. Rika nodded with uncertainty. About to ask what this was about, she was taken aback by the blonde walking away as quick as she'd arrived. It was only when the other reached the door that she stopped and beckoned Rika to follow. "Come with me. No one should sit alone for lunch on their first day."

The blonde, Arisa Uotani as she later introduced herself, led the pair to another two girls nestled beneath a tree on the school grounds. From there she was given the names of Saki Hanajima and Tohru Honda, a dark haired witchy girl and kind eyed brunette respectively. The girls asked her where she'd come from, where she lived, what she'd brought for lunch. It was the kind of subtle interrogation that she recognised from her last move but this one shifted pace at breakneck speed. Anytime a topic was hit that left her hesitating or debating her response, one of the other three diverted the tale in another direction. Without quite meaning to, Rika found she liked them all. At least for now. As Uo pilfered some fish from her bento box, there was a prickling sensation at the back of her neck that drew her gaze away from her companions.

It was the same redheaded boy from earlier, boring holes into the back of her school. Surrounding him were three other boys. When he realised she had seen him, his eyes quickly darted away and Rika shrugged it off. What a strange fellow.

* * *

"Would you stop staring you idiot? You're going to blow it for all of us if you don't!" Yuki Sohma's voice was low and careful, betraying the faintest hint of a tremor.

"You're looking at her too." Kyo, the redhead, snapped back. Hairs stood upright on the back of his neck and he had to resist letting his gaze wander back to the blonde whose attention had mercifully returned to her companions. Agitation rolled off him in spades and while this wasn't a new state of being for Kyo Sohma, the fact that he was standing willingly with his cousins certainly was.

The youngest looking of the quartet, Momiji, had crossed his arms over his chest as though to fend off something uncomfortable. His mouth, usually spread wide in a smile, had vanished down to a thin line.

"She really doesn't remember us does she?"

"Of course not you idiot! If she did do you think she'd be here after -," He was cut off by a jab to his shoulder from the fourth member of their group, the white haired Hatsuharu Sohma. More affectionately known as Haru.

"Lower your voice or walk away Kyo."

"You stupid bas-,"

"Hatori is too good at his job. If she knew us, she'd have approached us by now." The brewing fight was cut short by Yuki speaking up once more, a hand cupping his chin pensively. "This has to be Takuto and Kimiko's doing. Though why they send her _here_ of all places?"

"Maybe they didn't know we've begun attending mixed schools?" Momiji mused, "We're going to have to tell Hari right away."

"It still doesn't make sense why Takuto came back at _all_? Or why Kimiko let him?" Stumped by Yuki's words, all four boys let their guards down long enough to look back at the girls and Kyo sighed. Dragged a hand through his hair as he gestured wildly towards the four girls.

"Of _course_ Tohru would befriend her too." Kyo and Yuki hadn't encouraged it, slipping away from class as soon as they were able to, searching for their cousins. There'd been no time to warn her off, but then how could they have done that either? Not without giving away that there was a _reason_ for them not to befriend her. Even then, Kyo was struggling to convince himself of that reason at all.

"Maybe if Shigure meets her, he can be the one to tell Akito?" A shadow fell over each of their faces, silence reigning for a long beat. A beat broken only by the tolling of the school bell that signalled lunch was through. Resigned, the group departed and hoped they were right.


	3. Chapter 3

Rika tossed her backpack over her shoulder, waving a goodbye towards Uotani and Hana on the opposite side of the room. Nearly two weeks had passed since school had begun and while it hadn't been entirely smooth sailing - it hadn't been hell either. A rhythm had formed. Rika woke, dressed, attended school. She ate lunch daily with Tohru, Uo and Hana. At the end of the day they parted ways. When she arrived home she prepared dinner for her father, left it on the stove to keep warm and then retreated to her room to eat and do homework. It wasn't much of a life but it was better than what she'd been living in Okinawa.

The few bumps in the tracks had been the Sohma cousins, four boys who she'd been _sure_ were cautiously watching her every movement. It was odd enough that Hana had commented upon it, though in her strange way that included speaking of _waves_ and thoughts. Rika had waved it off as her just being the new girl, particularly one who was significantly older than her classmates.

Facing another weekend alone, as she inevitably would, was weighing heavier on her shoulders than she'd expected. The previous one had been a chance to take a walk around the neighbourhood but she'd found herself wandering down roads that felt familiar but strange. It had been jarring. Uncomfortable. To feel like something was just within her grasp but _not_.

"Rika!" The shouting of her name made her jump, a glance over her shoulder revealing it was Tohru who had followed her. She was already a couple blocks from the school, enough that the other girl had clearly had to run after her. Giving Tohru a chance to gather her breath, Rika waited with a raised eyebrow for bringing up the rear were Kyo and Yuki Sohma.

"Tohru," She grinned, "What's up?"

"We were going to invite you to the Sohma house tonight! You said your father was away and I had to speak to Shigure but he didn't ring us back until a little while ago but if you would like we could walk you home and then maybe you could sleepover too?" The words came out at breakneck speed and Rika had to blink a few times before she finally processed everything. Amber eyes flickering upwards to the two boys behind Tohru, she was surprised to find them silent but lacking any outright animosity.

"We would be very pleased if you joined us," Yuki pitched in when she hesitated too long and the brunette looked like she was about to panic for overstepping some invisible boundary, "Tohru is an excellent cook."

Rika considered it a moment longer before smiling. "Alright. I'm buying the groceries though okay? No arguments!"

* * *

A couple of hours later Rika found herself sprawled out on the porch of Shigure Sohma's house, hands clasped contentedly over her abdomen. There'd been more in the house than she had bargained for, Hatsuharu, Momiji and two older men that had been identified as Shigure and Hatori. There'd been no complicated conversation over the dinner table as everyone pitched in to make the night a success but now things had settled into a sort of calm.

The sky was clear and the stars out, and despite the bickering taking place from within the house - she felt utterly at peace. More so than she did at home with her father and their new apartment. Soft steps told her someone was taking a seat beside her and she looked upwards to see Hatori.

"It's a very pleasant evening Miss Hayashi." He was leaning forwards, arms resting on his legs. Looking down she saw he had put on some slippers. He noticed the glance and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "Don't worry, I won't catch a cold."

There was something familiar in the way he smiled and she found herself sitting upright to grin back at him.

"I should hope not. It seems like you have your hands full with that lot inside. I can't imagine there's many who can wrangle them into submission."

"They certainly can be," He gestured as if searching for a word, "_Tempestuous."_ As if to prove the point there was an outraged shout and it looked as if Kyo and Haru were squaring up to fight while Shigure cried something about _'my poor house_' in the background. Rika found herself sharing another grin with the man. He cleared his throat.

"So, what brought your family back to Tokyo? Tohru mentioned something about you growing up here?" Rika nodded, a little taken by the shift in conversation but there was something innately calming about Hatori Sohma.

"My mom and dad both grew up here. My dad worked for some big family nearby, he managed their finances or something but he got a promotion about -," She worried her lip as she thought, "Six years ago. In Okinawa."

"And another promotion brought you back?"

"I'm not sure actually. I think he was looking for a position here. Okinawa wasn't all that it was promised and then my mom…" Her voice trailed and looking up she realised that the voices from the room behind them had faded off too. They were all listening.

"Your mom?" Hatori prompted and when Rika met his eyes she realised something. He looked intensely interested, in a way that no one else had when she'd discussed the subject before. It was unnerving and without realising she had twined the ends of her braid into her hands. A nervous habit.

"A year ago. She had been sick for a while, there had been something about her family that had worn her down. It hadn't helped that I was -," Her jaw was tight, working against the heaviness of the words in her throat, "Anyways she passed away. After that I didn't go back to school for a while and -," She was cut off as hands were suddenly wrapped around her neck, a damp moisture seeping into the back of her shirt.

"Rika," It was Tohru and the tremor in her voice said she had not only been listening, but crying as she had done so, "I lost my mom too. For you to come back to school in a new city, with new friends and people. I had Uo and Hana and even the Sohma's, but you just had your dad but you're still here and smiling and I think you're brave Rika. So very brave." Rika's shoulders had stiffened against the embrace but despite herself the words had her eyes burning. Aching. Trying to blink back tears, Rika didn't notice the looks passing from Sohma to Sohma. The way Momiji had buried his head against Shigure's side or how the anger Kyo had been brimming with all evening melted away.

A slammed door broke her from the pointed staring she was doing at the pond and looking back she found that Kyo had left the room.

"I think it's about time I take home Momiji and Haru," Hatori was rising, a hand offered out to Rika once he stood, "I'm very sorry about your mother. Hopefully we will meet again soon."

Rustling up the boys took longer than expected and it was another hour before Rika was dressed for bed and waiting for Tohru to get back from the bathroom. The door was ajar and when Rika stood up from packing her clothes up, she started to see Kyo leaning in the space between.

"Your mother," He said, "What was her name?"

Her expression clouded with confusion, she answered.

"Kimiko Hayashi."

"No. Her _maiden_ name. From before she was married. What was it?"

Rika's mouth opened but nothing emerged. Instead there was a low throb of pain in her head like a nerve had been plucked, reverberating unsteadily. Her hand grasped for the edge of the bed and before she could stumble Kyo had a hand under her elbow.

"I'm sorry," Her voice was quiet, unsure, "I don't know. I can't remember." He walked her back, so she was sitting down, covers sinking under her weight and his fist resting against her forehead so briefly it could've been a butterfly touch.

"Forget it." By the time she steadied her breathing and looked up, he was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunday morning had bloomed softly, an almost perfect contrast to the sombre expressions of the men sitting around Hatori Sohma's table. Hatori himself was uncharacteristically agitated, fingers drumming against the wooden surface with an off tempo beat as his mind jumped from thought to thought. It was Ayame that broke the silence first, man never having been much at staying silent in the light of new revelations.

"And she doesn't recollect anything about us?"

"As far as we could tell," Shigure said, "Not a thing."

"Then there's no problem. Rika can go on living here in Tokyo and Akito doesn't need to know." Ayame gave a wave of his hand but all three men knew the words were in vain. Some things could be kept from Akito but if Rika developed her friendship with Tohru any further then lives were going to overlap. Threats had kept Kyo in line so far, reminders of what had been done the last time Akito and Rika had been in the same vicinity but Hatori knew it was inevitable for the Sohma head to discover this secret.

Shigure rubbed a hand over his chin, a cautious look thrown in Hatori's direction. He had been the one to call this meeting but so far, he'd looked nothing but pensive as though still puzzling out the best course of action. "Takuto must have known this could happen. Except _why_ bring Rika back here after last time? Even with Kimiko -," Shigure's voice hitched on her name, the lines around his mouth constricting unpleasantly. "It just doesn't make any sense!"

"We have two choices," Hatori finally spoke, long fingers resting flat against the woodwork, "We get ahead of this and tell Akito and hope that her current _calm_ extends to this too." Shigure's laugh was a bark, no real humour in the action. It faltered under the intensity of Hatori's serious stare. "_Second_ choice, we let this unfold as is. There's no guarantee that Rika's memory has been affected by our presence and Takuto isn't a foolish man. He wouldn't have come here without reason. Perhaps we simply have to wait and see."

A look passed between Ayame and Shigure at the suggestion of inaction, both men silently bickering before Ayame finally looked down. The loser.

"Hari - you're not letting your feelings cloud this are you?" Retaliation was swift, offered through a withering glare from the dragon.

"I'm as invested in keeping Rika safe as you both are, just as I am invested in stopping Akito from repeating the incident we observed with Isuzu." His tone brooked no argument, but the anger didn't hide the fact that Hatori hadn't truly answered the question.

That fact was as worrisome as the worn origami rose that still sat on Hatori's bookshelf, glittering and golden in the sunlight that streaked through the windows.

* * *

Takuto Hayashi had broken into his daughter's room. Well, _broken into_ implied that he was there to steal something but instead he was seeking evidence. Rika had struggled since Kimiko's death, they _both_ had, but since the return to Tokyo something had changed in his daughter. She was more like the child she'd once been. Confident and quick to smile. While the change felt somewhat miraculous there was still enough of a gap between father and daughter for the man to take steps.

Back when Kimiko had been alive, she had been better equipped to recognise and control their daughter's troubles. Takuto himself had been blind to anything after the move to Okinawa, sure that the combination of removing themselves from a bad situation and new friends were all the salve required to regain some of the childhood innocence she'd once had.

It had even worked.

For a time.

At fourteen, Rika had been bright and effervescent. Quick with wit, personable at school and almost entirely as carefree as she had been before being taken into the Sohma household. By fifteen she had been part of multiple clubs, student body president at her middle school and on track for a bright future. He had never discovered what had happened, at first too scared and now simply cowardly to ask - but shortly after her sixteenth birthday and a school trip _everything_ had begun to go south.

She had retreated into herself, withdrawn.

Nightmares had plagued her every night, the screams as chilling as the call of a spectre. Her second year at high school had been a stumbling mess until finally Kimiko had said enough and decided to take the girl out before her second term. It was then he had finally lost his daughter.

Working round the clock, he hadn't seen the warning signs of Kimiko's ill health. He'd been too concerned with hating the Sohma's right down to his very essence, especially when the counsellor they'd sent Rika to brought to light a number of drawings that told them more than he'd perhaps wanted to know. Shadowed rooms, cages. A monstrous figure looming on the edges, never with a face. She had drawn them again and again and _again_, the same scenes on an endless loop and slowly Kimiko had helped her figure it out. Find a little silver lining.

Takuto's hand pulled at a drawer and found what he'd been looking for.

Origami creatures of all shapes and sizes constructed from paper of every kind. Some of it were formed with special cards in a kaleidoscope of colours and some were clearly scraps torn from her school notes. Relief washed through him as he picked up a dainty rose, thumb scrubbing over the paper petals.

They never had figured out where the skill had come from, but Rika could only craft such things when she was happy. Takuto sighed. Maybe, _just maybe_, he had finally done the right thing by his daughter.


	5. Chapter 5

Rika's groan was louder than she'd intended it to be, girl staring at her teacher with a carefully sculpted look of bland indifference. She'd been called upon while not listening, her head and hands bowed over a little scrap of orange paper that she'd found in a store on her way to school that morning. Shape had begun to form, edges becoming ears. A nose. A tail. What _wasn't_ forming was the answer to the question that had been posed to her.

"Nineteen forty-two." The whisper was low enough for only Rika to hear and she reiterated the number, louder, to the sudden glare of their teacher. The woman gave her a look that said, '_I know you weren't listening but I'm too tired to give a damn_' and instead turned her attention to one of the girls on the other side of the room.

An exhale of relief. Rika tried her best to stay attentive for the last fifteen minutes of the lesson, turning around to rest an elbow on the desk behind her and grin widely at Yuki in the process.

"You're a _saviour_." She proclaimed to the boy, a loud _HAH_ sounding from where Kyo was sitting a few seats away. Rika hitched an eyebrow at him but he refused to meet her gaze. Honestly, the Sohma's were all so _strange_.

Since she had been around at their house a few weeks earlier, Tohru had been insistent on her calling by most weekends rather than spending time home alone. There had been an endless cycle of Sohma cousins to be introduced to including a remarkably boisterous sibling of Yuki's called Ayame, and a girl around her own age, Kagura, whom she was quite sure had given Kyo some kind of hernia while she was there. Not to mention Shigure, Hatori, Haru and Momiji also showing up. Of course, it wasn't just Tohru insisting on visits. Uo and Hana had both introduced her to their families, a thing she hadn't yet been able to reciprocate.

Her father's job had kept him busier than ever, leaving before she woke in the mornings and often not coming back until late at night. If he even came back at all. She couldn't understand his urgency for work hours, Rika having saved up quite a lot of her own funds the previous year while working at the local Dojo in her district. Part of her suspected much of it was still to do with him not wanting to be in Tokyo, or be with her. It stung, but then, she couldn't say she knew how to speak to him all that well either. They were worlds - _universes_ \- apart.

Momiji and Haru once again joined the group for lunch, the summer sunshine forcing them to retreat beneath the shade of a large tree near the school. Rika picked at her bento box, not especially hungry. Hardly an issue with four teenage boys about however. Or Hana.

"Hari said he can drop us over tomorrow for dinner like you asked Tohru! Ri-Ri, could you come too?" Momiji's voice was a nightingale's flourish, rising and falling with each flutter of emotion the boy offered. Rika gave a small shrug and an agreement, taken aback by the use of _Ri-Ri_ more than the invitation itself. Particularly when the sound of it made Kyo's back stiffen visibly. Rika didn't know why she'd noticed it, or what drew her gaze to him.

Of all the Sohma's, he'd been the one who'd spoken to her least. Come to think of it, they were seldom left alone together without another person present. The only time she could recall him directly speaking to her was that first night at the Sohma's when he'd asked about her mother's maiden name. Something she'd _still_ been unable to recall. In fact, she remembered little about her mother's family either. While there were no longer nightmares, the girl could feel an absence at times. It swallowed her up when she was alone like a little voice that proclaimed she was nothing. Would _always_ be nothing.

Around Tohru it was difficult to feel sorry for herself. The girl was so endlessly cheery that Rika felt it seeping into her own pores piece by piece. Just a little at a time but _enough_. So much so she'd even begun making origami again, something which she hadn't done since before her mom had passed away.

"What's that Rika?" Tohru had sidled closer without her noticing and Rika felt her cheeks flush. She'd sat a little further away so as not to disturb the conversati omkopns unfolding but also because she hadn't yet shared her hobby with the group. Clearing her throat, Rika opened her cupped hands to reveal what she was working on. "Oh! A _cat!_"

Tohru's excitement was always palpable and she had it plucked from Rika's palms to study it before Rika could protest. As Tohru continued to praise the work however, she found she didn't really wish to protest. Her father had never really understood where her desire to fold paper had come from (truthfully, neither did Rika herself) but she found it calming. Like the eye of a storm.

"Look Kyo, it's a cat!" The redhead had rolled over lazily as Tohru waved the little paper feline under his nose, as unable to resist Tohru's energy as anyone else seemed to be. "Isn't it beautiful? The cat always was my favourite!"

"Mine too." Rika admitted, garnering another odd look from Kyo himself. He blew out his cheeks and rolled away to stare in the other direction and she flushed deeper than before. He didn't have to like it but he didn't have to be _rude_. A shout drew her gaze upwards, one of the first years running across the yard had stumbled towards their group. Towards an oblivious Hatsuharu, the teen sprawled across the grass. Before she even knew what she was doing Rika was on her feet, a hand hooked around the girls waist and pushing her back towards a stable stance. Rika's chest felt tight with something that could've only been fear, loud enough to drown out the thanks of the flustered freshman in her arms.

"Ri-Ri, are you okay?" Momiji had moved to her side, a hand snagging her upper arm and releasing the freshman from her grasp. Blinking, Rika turned to look back at the group and noted the way Tohru's hand was over her chest. How Yuki's face had paled and Kyo's flushed. Uo and Hana seemed as baffled as Rika herself, looking between the spot where she'd been sitting and where she now stood as if trying to comprehend when exactly she'd moved.

It was Haru that broke the tension, a lazy smile on his face as he proclaimed. "From this angle I can almost see up your skirt." The comment gained him a series of protests and complaints from the others and Rika found that she could only laugh. The sound dissipated whatever strangeness was in the air, Uo and Hana pulling Rika back down to ask how long she'd been training to move that fast. Conversation shifted towards her time at the dojo in Okinawa and the year she'd spent there, enough that she didn't notice Kyo moving away with a small scrap of orange paper in his hands and by the end of the day the incident had been pushed away almost entirely.

* * *

Kyo lay on the roof, his head tilted towards the sky as he examined the little paper cat in his hands. He turned it over delicately as he traced the folds, noting how much neater her lines had gotten. Tighter. He wondered if she remembered why she made such things.

"_What're you doing?" The young boy had crouched in front of his friend, pushing her long blonde hair back so he could see what she held between her palms. _

"_Something Hatori showed me." Kyo sat in front of her cross legged, waiting for the girl to finish her task and explain further. Patience had never been his strong suit but pushing Rika only ever earned him a headache. It was easier to let her come to him. "He said it'll make the bad stuff go away. Each fold is...like a new box. A place to put a memory that I don't like." _

"_Do you put me in there?" She looked up, shocked._

"_No! Why would I?! You're only good stuff Kyo. Only good stuff." Even at nine he knew the words had to be a lie, but the eleven-year-old looked so adamant that his eyes softened. She looked down, cheeks turning pink. "Kyo…" _

"_Huh?"_

"_Will you love me when I'm twenty?" He blinked. _

"_Why're you askin' this?"_

"_I just want to know!" _

"_Obviously," Kyo's arms crossed stubbornly, "But you can't tell anybody that."_

"_And when I'm fifty?" There was a hint of a smile playing around her mouth and he suddenly remembered the game they had played when they were younger, tucked beside one another in a futon. Despite how embarrassing it was, he could help but play along. Especially when it made her smile like that._

"_Only if you love me back."_

"_And when I'm eighty and wrinkling and old?" _

"_Well then I'll be just the same." With Rika he was able to forget he was the cat. That someday soon he'd eventually be locked away in a room all his own, a room that had no life or love or brightness in it. She pushed the paper into his hands. _

"_Here you go. This one's yours!" Kyo held it up to study it, nose wrinkling as he looked at the crumpled mess she'd gifted him. _

"_What's it meant to be?"_

"_A cat! Duh!" _

"_It looks like a -," The mutinous expression on her face told him to say nothing further and his voice trailed off. He was saved by the sound of his Shishou calling from the living room, announcing that dinner was ready. Rika got to her feet, brushing off what scraps of paper she'd created while getting her single piece to the right size for making her roadkill cat. Looking fretful she turned back to him._

"_I sure hope that Kunimitsu cooked dinner tonight." Kyo laughed despite himself, pressing his fist to her forehead. Wondering for a moment just when she'd gotten so tall and grown up looking. It wasn't fair that she was leaving him behind. _

"_Do you smell burning? Of course Kunimitsu cooked. Your mom wouldn't have left that to chance!" _

A sound on the roof, birds settling against the gutters and fluttering off just as quick, pulled Kyo from his thoughts. The teenager pressed a hand to his cheek. Why did it hurt so much to remember all that? What difference did it make for him to torture himself this way? It couldn't bring back the girl he knew any more than change what had caused her to leave in the first place.

Tohru's voice came from his room and he padded his way back towards the ladder slowly, shoving the paper back into his pocket and leaving it where it wouldn't sting so much.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N/ I just want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, favourited and enjoyed this fic so far. I super appreciate it all and can't wait to continue this story 3 /A/N

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"Have we much further to go?" Arisa Utoani's voice was loud and filled with complaint as she trudged after the other three girls. "I've been working all day; I don't need to do a hike on top of it."

Rika laughed, shifting the bag of groceries she'd picked up from her left to right hand.

"You're just cranky because we ate all the takoyaki before you got to us." The _harrumph_ that sounded behind her was all the answer she needed, Rika powering forward until she got to the corner of her apartment block. They had planned a weekend together a while back, but until recently it hadn't been feasible thanks to her father's schedule. With summer quickly approaching the girls had chosen to spend a little time without the Sohma's but truthfully Rika had an additional reason for pushing for it. Something had happened Tohru recently, something that had made her seem quieter. A little more pensive. Rika knew Hana and Uo had noticed the same thing, and not one of them wanted the summer to creep up on them without trying to root out what, or who, had caused it.

Announcing that they'd arrived, Rika led the girls upstairs and hoped the place was well received. Her father had finally seen to the shipping from Okinawa, Rika setting up family photographs and old trinkets around the living room so it began to feel more like a home. The distance between them had begun to feel a little less cavernous, part of which she had to assume was due to him coming home more in the evenings and them actually eating together. Dwindling nightmares helped too. In fact, since the first night she'd stayed with the Sohma's there were no nightmares at all.

Dinner was a group effort, all four girls helping out in their own way. Tohru and Rika tackled the bulk of the cooking while Arisa managed the drinks. Hana provided helpful commentary on the waves of the apartment that made Rika wonder just what it was that was picked up from her own heart.

She didn't have to wait long for such an answer, the opportunity arising while she scolded Hana for picking at some of the desserts as she watched the cooking meat.

"You don't have to feel guilty you know." Rika nearly dropped the spatula she was holding at Hana's words, twisting to look at the girl again and pulling away the plate of mochi that should've already been in the fridge. Although there was every chance it _had_ been there and Hana had removed it.

"What -?"

"You have guilt in your heart. It's painful to bear it alone but know you don't have to. We, all of us, will listen to you if you want to speak about it." Hana's voice was low, almost as though she was trying to keep their words confined to the space between them. For that, Rika was grateful.

"I -," Rika's mouth opened and shut with nothing coming out, unable to meet Hana's eye as she struggled to find the words. As she tried to refute the weird accusation. Instead what came out was -, "I don't know why it's there."

"Oh? Then why hold onto it?"

"Because it has to be there for a reason? I _have_ to feel this way for a reason." The tenor of her voice had peaked upwards and captured the other two girl's attention. Rika turned away from Hana, checking on the pot on the stove while she settled herself. "It's just there. I feel it all the time. I've tried to pretend it's not, but it just _is_."

"I see." Hana had won in claiming one of the pieces of mochi, drawing an exasperated noise from Rika, "These are lovely, what kind of ice-cream did you use..."

Footsteps ended the baffling conversation, Tohru padding towards the kitchen with a picture frame in her hands.

"Is this your mom? She was so beautiful! Her eyes! Just like yours." Rika reached out to claim the photograph, examining it as she agreed that they were. Amber eyes were unusual, but apparently, a family trait. Kimiko had gotten them from her father, and they'd been inherited by Rika herself. Her mother had once said they were a recessive trait, just like the blonde hair she'd received from the Scandinavian relatives on her father's side. She told Tohru as such, grinning when Tohru said she knew a girl who had eyes just as similar. One of the Sohma's.

Honestly, just how big was that family?

After dinner, they watched a movie together and set up sleeping spaces because Rika's room was too small to accommodate four rather than one. Her fathers wouldn't have worked either, the space smaller than her own. However, with the table pushed aside, the living room functioned perfectly.

Sprawled across the blankets, conversations danced from their upcoming summer vacation to what sort of careers they might discuss at the parent-teacher conferences. It was at that point Uo twisted in her makeshift bed, pinning Rika with an intense look.

"Why _are_ you so much older? You should be in university by now right?" Tohru's admonishment was quick, Hana's quiet. Rika dropped from the elbow she had been resting on, staring at the ceiling. Bickering ensued above the level of her head and she closed her eyes. Gathered up her courage. It wasn't like she could hide behind such things forever.

"I did a year of high school in Okinawa," The girls voices halted at once, weight shifting against her legs where Tohru had settled. "I loved it. I was going to be student body president; I was on the swim team. Then we had a school trip. To Tokyo. I was so excited you know?" Their silence told her they were listening, and Rika folded her hands over her stomach to stop herself reaching for her hair.

"It started off fine. I recognised some of the places we called to and then one of the guys brought us to this haunted house. It seemed creepy, but nothing bad. I'd never been in one. I didn't even think I'd be scared… Except something happened. I _saw_ something or _felt_ something - I don't know." She'd stopped eating. Sleeping. Mind fighting against every trace of normality she should have had. Her mother had assumed it was just stress to start but when she'd begun to rapidly lose weight, looking worse and worse until she hit the point of collapse - at which point both her parents had agreed counselling and hospitalisation were the right course of action.

Rika inched her way through the details slowly. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her history, more that it was difficult to speak about. Therapy sessions had led her counsellor to believe she had some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that had been triggered by that dumb haunted house. Everything was attempted to help her overcome it, to figure out why it had kicked off in the first instance. Drawings had been the realisation that there was something deeper, a _buried memory_, her counsellor said.

Dark rooms. Bars that looked like cages. A shadowy figure. Rika could never understand it, how something _surely_ in her dreams could have such a profound effect because there was nothing in her life that matched it. Her childhood had been happy. _Hadn't it?_

"I missed a year. Started to get better and then -," Then her mom had gotten ill. It had been happening for longer than she or her father had known, the pallid skin and exhaustion put down to Rika's strained condition. Rika had felt, _still_ felt, that she'd known better. She'd begged her father to recognise it but he was too busy stewing in some trauma of his own. Despite her intentions, Rika's hand had moved to the ends of her hair and the strands were twisted and tangled around her fingers.

By the time her mother had agreed to see a doctor it had been too late. She'd lasted a couple more weeks and then passed away. Leaving Rika and Takuto with nothing but each other to live with. He'd tried to instil normality and she had rebelled. Told him she wasn't going back to school and he'd said that if not, she would have to work. To do _something._

It had brought her to the dojo where she'd spent the previous year, relearning discipline and patience. She'd trained in martial arts as a child but in teaching other kids she'd had to learn how to be kinder to herself. To her father. It wasn't easy. Not even a little bit.

By the time her father had announced the move to Tokyo, Rika herself had already come to the decision to go back to school. To finish out her education and find something that she loved to do. A something she was still debating over even now. When she'd finished speaking, it was Uo that piped up first.

"The haunted house. What did you see do you think?"

Rika started to say she didn't know but paused. "I always thought it was part of the instalment, but I think maybe it might have been outside. There was someone. A _voice_." She laughed, shaking her head. "I sound nuts."

"That's okay. So long as you don't murder us in our sleep." Hana's deadpan attempt at humour only added to the ridiculous nature of her statement and Rika burst out laughing. It was contagious, spreading to Tohru and Uo until all four girls were nearly weeping into their pillows. A sharp _thump thump_ from the floor was warning that they'd annoyed Mrs. Suzuki in the apartment below which, _naturally_, made them howl all the more.

It was after they'd calmed down that Rika thought of what had sent her down that dark road. After Uo and Hana's breaths had deepened and drawn out. Tohru's hand crept across the blankets, fingers interlocking with her own.

"I know they don't feel like good things," The sound was muffled by tiredness and pillows, Tohru's eyes just about visible in the moonlight through the window, "But if all those things didn't happen, we wouldn't have met. So maybe your mom is still watching out for you, just like mine. Helping us make friends. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"It would."

In another minute both girls had drifted off, hands joined, and the sadness softened out of their faces by something that felt an awful lot like _love_.


	7. Chapter 7

Summer break hadn't quite hit yet but a cruel trick of fate ensured that the weather was going to make them long for it all the more. Rain had started to come down a few days earlier. First as little spouts. Then sheets. Then _walls_. No matter how well Rika attempted to dry her clothing, her rain boots continued to feel wet and her coat remained the _wrong_ side of sticky.

Huffing, Rika was halfway towards her train service when she spotted a figure pressed in against the side of a building seeking shelter. Curious, she started forward only to flinch as the young man turned. Met her eye.

The school shirt he'd tugged over his head had hidden his shock of orange hair but it couldn't hide his face. For once, the look he gave her was tired rather than ominous. It was enough of a new experience that Rika hesitated. Sighed.

"Screw it." Speaking to herself, she moved forward to stand beside him. "Kyo. Are you okay?"

"Do I _look_ okay?" Alright, Rika mused, _still_ cantankerous. Abandoning care, the woman chose blunt honesty instead.

"You look like a drowned cat but since I'm walking near your house on my way to the train, you could share my umbrella. If you wish?" It didn't feel especially appealing given how little he had ever seemed to want to engage with her. Even the evenings she had spent at the Sohma's had been marked by Kyo's sullen or detached silences, Rika almost having adapted to the way he walked out of the room when she spoke. Stranger still was the way he continuously needled her when she was alone.

_What's your mother's family name_?

He only ever asked it in secret. Only ever got one answer.

She'd checked her home for records after the move. For photographs. All of the information was on her father's side which _was_ suspicious but then again - her mother _had_ said she was estranged from the family.

Trouble was, did estranged have to mean _secret?_

At times it felt Kyo knew more than he was telling her. That he was pushing her to come a realisation on her own terms. Rika found the game exhausting. Two years out of school had left her scrambling to find a routine again, to catch up. Investigating mysteries that her mother had tried to take to the grave felt like a recipe for disaster. Even if it _did_ involve Kyo and his remarkably odd cousins. Well, _some_ of them were odd. The teen in front of her especially so.

"Fine." He spat the word through gritted teeth. "Just don't talk to me while we do it though okay?" There was little fire in his demand and so instead of challenging it, Rika lifted the umbrella higher to accommodate them both. He stepped in beside her, hands thrust into his pockets. His whole stance petulant and worn. It was the first time he'd been this close and Rika felt his discomfort in droves, yet under that was a different sensation. Comfort.

Silence lasted two blocks before Rika's patience frayed. Working at the dojo had helped her offer support. Kindness. It didn't mean enduring idiots without figuring out a reason for their actions.

"Did I do something to offend you?" Caught off step by the question, Kyo didn't even get to reiterate his rule as she pressed on. "I'd at least like to know what I did. I can't apologise for something that I don't know about, and if you keep looking at me like I pissed in your miso I'm going to explode."

The outburst seemed to shock him, but it was the laughter that unnerved her. Kyo clutched at his side as he buckled forward and she leaned away from him with alarm.

"Pissed in my miso." He was cackling, and Rika's cheeks reddened with irritation, "That's the most ridiculous thing you've ever said."

"How would you even know that? We've hardly spoken for more than five minutes in the entire time I've known you." Kyo looked suitably ashamed, though what was worse was the sudden melancholy that crept into his expression. Rika turned her head away, grip tightening on her umbrella. She'd walked a few steps when the teen froze and she stumbled as the back spikes got caught in his hair. Swearing loudly, Kyo ducked forward to catch her arm.

"I'm sorry." She stopped, arching a brow. "For being an asshole to you. You don't deserve it. Listen," His hands were flailing, spread wide then just as quickly tucked into his pockets and Rika, against her better judgement, found the whole thing endearing. "There's a pretty good dumpling place next block over. Let's grab food and I'll try explain it to you?"

Rika waited a moment before responding, not out of malicious cruelty but more because this side of Kyo - apologetic, earnest and almost sweet - was new. Intriguing. Even if it had taken him months to get there. Perhaps it was the rain making him softer.

And then -

"Sure."

* * *

He hadn't lied, the place _did _do spectacular dumplings. Dinner had been strange for numerous reasons, not least of which being the fact that Kyo kept tiptoeing his way around whatever it was he wished to say. He'd quizzed her on school, her life in Okinawa and at one point had even begun to waffle on about the weather.

Rika found herself bemused by the situation. Kyo was working desperately hard at putting something into words right before her eyes and she suspected none of the girls would believe it. Well, perhaps Tohru would but Rika had been watching the development of something _complicated_ between Kyo and the Honda girl for a short while now. Feelings like that would always skew belief. It was inevitable.

"Not that hearing you talk about the weather in the mountains for the third time isn't riveting," It wasn't, "But you still haven't really explained anything Kyo."

He quietened, hands clasping and releasing a number of times in quick succession.

"You remind me of someone." Rika almost laughed but managed to keep her tongue bitten. Enough to give the redhead time to construct what he was trying to say. "She - she was just like you in lots of ways. Stubborn and hot headed and fierce. For a really long time as a kid I used to look at her and think, hey _this is it. This is the person I'm gonna spend my whole life with._"

Rika was suddenly glad she hadn't laughed. Kyo's expression was anguished. Gaze distant. The frankness of it slipped beneath her skin like a blade.

"Something happened - this thing with my family - she had been given an important thing to do and I challenged it. I felt alone and angry and selfish. I wanted her with me and I didn't care what I had to say to get that." He'd buried his face in his hands, elbows resting on the table.

"She loved me too much I think. Enough to come to me even when she shouldn't have. I didn't think anything of it at first when she went home and I didn't see her for a couple days. Except that became weeks. They stopped answering the phone. I couldn't get - Her family _moved_. That day she'd been with me there'd been a kind of accident and it had caused a lot of trouble. So her parents had taken her away to try and put it right but she never came back."

Rika's hands had come to rest on her lap, eyes itching with what might have been tears if she hadn't bit down hard enough on her bottom lip to stop them.

"Kyo I -"

"No wait. I'm not done okay." Rika nodded. "I saw you and you reminded me of her. The way you speak, and how you move and just - it drudged up this dumb anger I had at her for leaving like she did. For not saying goodbye. I get now that it wasn't in her hands but sometimes I just don't think straight and I guess you were an easy target for all that hurt."

Rika wanted to tell him it was okay. That how he'd acted towards her was natural for someone who had been hurt. Except she couldn't. He'd been rude to her. Dismissive. Occasionally _cruel_. Enough time at Kaibara had shown her that some of those things were just how Kyo functioned. Brash, hot headed and stubborn to a fault. Watching him challenge Yuki to fights in an endless cycle was proof enough of that.

"You can't punish someone for something they didn't do. That's not right." He groaned into his hands at the sharp tone she spoke with. Rika didn't mean to be cruel, but she was _hurt_. It didn't help that his story reignited the small flicker of guilt in her chest, swelling it with something she _hadn't_ done. Couldn't have done. If she was that girl, she'd _remember_ it. She'd never have left him either. Not without explanation. Who on earth just vanished overnight?

"I know. I know." He sounded miserable. Apologetic.

"It's not right to beat yourself up for something that happened as a kid either." His head lifted, surprised. "This girl, you loved her and she chose you, and then she left. Of course you're going to be angry. Hurt because she went without a goodbye. Guilty because you blame yourself, and then angry again because the one person you want to talk to about all that stuff -,"

"Had gone." Kyo finished. There was something off in his expression, an emotion Rika couldn't put her finger on. It spoke of something more than the tale he'd given her. Something still hidden. When she blinked, it had vanished. She reached out, dropped a hand over his gently.

"It's okay to feel things Kyo. Just don't mix up the people you direct those feelings at." She smiled. "Cause someday someone will beat your ass for it." His startled bark of a laugh was sudden and bright, the smile that crept onto his face almost sly.

"And that'd be you would it?"

"Damn straight."

"As if you could beat me."

"Let's take this outside and I'll show you." Their banter had gotten progressively more fierce, Rika leaning in to meet his challenge head on. The grin that spread over his face jarred her, especially when she found herself mirroring it. Kyo glanced away, disgust evident as he noted the still ongoing downpour outside.

"Maybe another day."

Rika settled back into her seat as her eyes danced with mischief.

"Coward." He didn't verbally retaliate, rolling his eyes instead. Rather than face the rain outside, the pair ordered desert and hot tea for the table. Sitting there, they discussed training regimens. Ridiculous homework assignments. How Hanajima had the skills of a raccoon for sniffing out uneaten food.

By the time Kyo excused himself to go meet Tohru from work, Rika felt that they were almost friends. Hell, she _might_ have even entertained the notion that she liked him a little.

_Might._


	8. Chapter 8

Summer had come along quicker than Rika had expected, and with it - taken Tohru and the Sohma's away to some holiday villa. At first, she'd denied any jabs by Uo and Hana over missing them but after a couple days of idle boredom she had to admit they were right. There were, after all, only so many hours she could spend loitering at Hana's house or at either of Uo's two jobs. With that knowledge, she'd had to find something else to do with her time.

Besides homework.

Kyo had told her about his dojo during one of their more recent tentative steps towards friendship and with his suggestion, Rika had taken up training again. The master, Kazuma, had left on some retreat when she'd begun turning up for sessions which left Rika working on form and sparring with one of his assistants, a young woman by the name of Rei. It was coming from the dojo that she met Uo after work, the other blonde looking a little more melancholy than usual. An endurable offence until Rika had to steer her friend out of the oncoming path of foot traffic for the third time.

"Okay, _out with it_," Rika exploded. They'd been talking in bursts since Rika had arrived, Uo switching the subject like a spinning roulette. "What's up with you? You're on another planet today!"

Arisa had the good graces to look sheepish, spoon stabbed into the ice-cream she was holding.

"I met a guy." Rika laughed, earning her a retaliatory glare. _Girl talk_ of this calibre was generally outside her wheelhouse, most of her friends having consisted of - well, _children_ \- until recently.

"What _kind_ of guy?"

"You know! A _guy_. Tall, gorgeous and entirely lacking in functional brain cells." Rika couldn't say that she _did_ know. Her own romantic endeavours had always been clipped and difficult to pursue. Spending a year knocking guys onto their rear ends had rather limited her dating pool, which had been the bulk of her experience in Okinawa. A kiss her or there didn't count when she'd felt nothing towards them. Popping ice cream into her mouth, she asked.

"Go on. What makes him lacking in brain cells?"

"It was like he'd never been in a convenience store in his life. Dropped stuff all over the floor. A sweet, kind of a mess of a person. Like Tohru." Despite little familiarity with such things, it was plain as day that Uo was smitten by her encounter. Rika couldn't help but grin. It spread wide across her face. Something childish and idiotic was building and she couldn't stem it.

"Uo's in _lo-veeee_." The outburst earned her a swiped hand to the back of her head, Rika clutching the smarting skin as she pouted. "No fair."

"I'm not in love," Uo protested, "I just -"

"Want to see him again. Have his _babies_." Second time around she managed to duck the incoming hand, body dancing ahead of the other girl so she could flash her a mischievous smile. Uo sighed, shaking her head.

"He just seemed different than the other guys I've met. There was something there. He made me laugh." Rika slowed down to step back in beside Uo, eyeing her friend from the corner of her eye. She wanted to agree, to say she understood but truly - she _didn't_. Well, _part _of her did. The girl wasn't blind. She could recognise beautiful people all the time, even more so now that she'd been spending so much time at the Sohma's.

"So, will you?" Uo looked up, absently tossing her empty carton into the nearest bin.

"Will I what?"

"See him again stupid. Will you see him again?" Uo huffed. Shook her head more firmly this time.

"I didn't even get his name. I've no idea where I'd find him."

"Well, my mom always said if it's meant to be it's meant to be. Maybe you guys will find one another again."

"I hope so." Linking an arm into Uo's, Rika let her shoulder rest against the other's. An idea popped into her head as they walked and she straightened upright again before dragging Uo forward.

"C'mon. There's a shrine on the next street over. Let's make a prayer for your mysterious guy to come back."

"You're kidding right?"

"Absolutely not! We've got time and it's a matter of the heart. Those things need all the help they can get." Uo snorted, feet dragged slowly. Rika herself wasn't sure about it, but that was what friends did. Support each other in wild fantasies as and when needed.

"And what are _you_ wishing for?"

"Oh, a tall dark handsome stranger to come whisk me off my feet." Rika stuck out her tongue. "_Obviously_."

"If you're not careful it'll be someone like Shigure Sohma." It was impossible to not burst out laughing at that, Rika shuddering dramatically at the suggestion.

"I mean, _all_ the Sohma's I've met are stupidly gorgeous but I think we can aim better than that. I want someone who won't torture me just for the fun of it." She paused, thinking it over. "And can clean his own damn house."

"Now you're being too needy. Keep those desires simple and you won't go wrong."

"Says the one who asked for the ice-cream with everything on."

"I stand by it! Alright Miss Bright-Ideas. Let's go to the shrine and pray for good fortune in love."

* * *

The greatest downside of Summer break had been the time at home, Rika staring endlessly at the boxes that had arrived from Okinawa but remained sealed. While she'd ensured the bulk of the photographs had been sourced and given pride of place around the apartment, some of the items had been too hard to face. Her mother's old clothes, for instance, some of which she knew would fit her now. It was a practicality her mind kept coming back to even as she let them gather dust.

Her father had been ignoring them as determinedly as Rika had, though things between the two had softened somewhere in the past couple months. Rika wasn't sure whether it was time or something else, but they'd begun to eat breakfast together again. Watch silly game shows at night. It reminded her of when they'd first moved to Okinawa and her mom had been working late shifts, the two of them eating leftovers and curled up under the kotatsu.

Mostly, she thought it was _nice_.

Leaning forward to deposit the physics book she'd been studying as part of her summer homework, Rika looked up to find her father watching her in the small gap between kitchen and living room.

"I saw your gear out with the laundry. Are you training again?" He posed the question carefully, as if expecting retaliation. Not an unwarranted fear given how callous she'd been towards him in the immediate aftermath of Kimiko's death. Rika nodded, accepting the dinner tray he waved towards her.

"One of the guys in school recommended a dojo so I figured I'd join."

Takuto's mouth twitched at the edge, a nervous habit Rika had come to recognise as the precursor to a question he wasn't quite sure he wanted the answer for.

"A boy?"

"A boy." Rika reiterated, rolling her eyes. "Just a classmate. Don't worry."

Her father flushed, looking away. He busied himself with eating some food and she waited for the next question that could be seen brewing in his mind. For all her father's skills, a poker face certainly wasn't one of them.

"And are there - _other_ \- boys? Or girls?" She laughed, shaking her head.

"Seriously Dad?" Rika clucked her tongue then decided to answer him truthfully, "No. Most of the ones in my class are just immature or haven't learned how to bathe properly yet."

He looked suitably mollified by her words although the inquisitive crease between his brows didn't faded. If it hadn't been so long since they'd had such a normal discussion, Rika might have protested. There was just something comforting about it, a reminder that he still cared for her as much as she did for him. Even if they struggled to express it much of the time.

"And you've made good friends right? People you trust." Rika's sigh was one of exasperation, but she nodded all the same.

"Yes. I have. I'm happy okay. You don't need to worry."

"I'll always worry Rika. You're my daughter. Even when you're sixty and married and settled down in your life, I'll _still_ worry." She reddened across her the entirety of her face, trying to blow out her cheeks to dissuade any further sappiness but found herself touched by the sentiment. Not enough to entertain any more of the present discussion however.

"Eat up or your miso will get cold." He opened his mouth to protest then changed his mind and did as he was told. Much to her relief. Softness was wonderful and welcome, but there was only so much of it she could handle at the best of times. Still, it didn't stop her from making extra dessert for them that night or pressing a kiss to his cheek before bed. Maybe tomorrow, she could finally work her way through those boxes as well.


	9. Chapter 9

There was a bittersweet edge to the items laid out before her. An old school uniform that had somehow made it through multiple moves. A bright blue sweater that unearthed memories of being hugged against her mother's chest as a young child. Whatever had inspired such hugs had long faded but in their wake was the sharp sweet taste of nostalgia. There were folders of teaching plans and work assessments, copies of all of Rika's old school reports.

Thumbing through those she noted the strange absences. Mentions of weeks out of school she would need to make up for. Copies of letters in return stating Kimiko would manage the deficit over the holidays. Rika, try as she might, couldn't recollect such things. The years matched between the ages of seven and fourteen, but all she gained when she tried to puzzle it out was the sharp twang of a growing headache. Since they'd moved back to Tokyo she'd had moments, fleeting ones, where it felt like part of her had been trapped within some kind of impenetrable bubble.

It was the kind of thing that locked her away from her mother's maiden name. That kept her from comprehending _why_ she might have missed enough school days for a teacher to comment on such a thing.

Teeth grinding, Rika skipped through the rest of the documents for any clue to the gaps in her memories. Thoughts of sorting through the clothing abandoned, Rika searched for a box with more paperwork or files and hoped there might be an answer within it.

It took four boxes before she found anything whatsoever and it was a torn sheet of paper containing the scrawl of a delicate hand that had been shoved into the back of a textbook. The penmanship was harsh and blotted with ink spills but it was the contents that she couldn't tear her eyes from.

_I understand why you did it, but I don't think I can ever forgive you for this. Taking away the pain has also taken away the introspective, considerate and loving parts of who she was. Takuto disagrees, he always has, but growing up the way we all have - it was all meant for something. _

_I have to believe that Hatori. _

_I still believe it. We were born to something greater than ourselves. This wasn't just a single blip in her being to be removed. You've changed how she thinks. Feels. Loves. I can see it already. She's brighter and carefree, this is true, but untethered by whatever it was that bound her to all of you - she's lost something critical to her very sense of self. She's lonelier without you Hatori. Without everyone. Even __her__. Only she doesn't know it. _

_That's the worst part of it, I think. When she cries for no reason, when I see that distant look in her eyes - I can't explain it to her. I can't help her. She made this choice because she felt she had no other option, but I beg you to find one. To give her back her sense of self. To give me back the child I had and raised instead of this -_

What remained of the letter had been shorn from the bottom and though she turned it over and back a number of times, it didn't reveal anything new. Hatori. How common was that name? It could _hardly_ have been the Sohma physician her mother had been writing to with such familiarity. As though they knew each other. As though _Rika_ had known them.

Another twinge started across the side of her head and Rika clutched at the skin, a halo of colour spreading across her vision. The headaches had been fleeting and strange until now, but the one that began crept its way under her skin like a blade. Seeped below the lids of her eyes. It didn't feel _natural_.

Discarding the page to one side she staggered to the bathroom cabinet and unearthed some painkillers, studying her reflection in the mirror as she washed the tablets down with water.

Forearms rested on the porcelain; Rika took deep gasping breaths to centre herself. There was no reason for the panic building in her gut but yet it existed all the same. Some deep and unfathomable memory that was clawing its way to the surface and pulling her at the same instance.

It was impossible to know how long passed before Rika felt steady again, blinking away the pain. Her movements were jittery as she returned to the boxes, more hesitant this time. As though some instinct was screaming at her to turn back. To forget this. Forgetting meant giving up. Giving _in_.

Kyo hadn't asked about her mother for weeks now but the doubt he'd offered remained. A doubt growing larger by the second. Hatori Sohma. _It couldn't be_. The content of the letter made less sense and added a fevered need to the way she tackled the remaining boxes.

Most of what she found was inconsequential. Old novels, half read judging from the bookmarks still in their pages. Photographs. Clothing. One item stood out. A box that had been locked shut, the contents rattling noisily when Rika gave it a hard shake.

She vaguely recalled seeing such an item tucked below her mothers bed in her final days. If it had been kept that close, then it _had_ to be important.

Thoughts of protecting her mother's privacy had vanished with the desperation of her searching and so Rika unearthed a knife. The first blunted and was discarded to the second. The second she managed to get through the gap in the metal, levering the blade up and down with barely contained impatience until finally - _finally -_ it clicked open.

Rika's gasp of air was painful in her chest, eyes widening as she put words to her surprise.

"_What the hell is this?"_

* * *

She had been waiting for him when he'd gotten in the door, body poised and ready for battle. Takuto could sense it in the way her arms crossed her chest. In the way her eyes glinted a reflection of the evening sun.

"Were you ever going to explain this?" It was an explosion of noise contained within one strained sentence and his eyes flickered from her face to the items she shoved across the table at him. Photographs. A yearbook. _Letters_.

_Damn you Kimiko, what the hell did you do?_

"I don't understand?" He tried for ignorance. Confusion. The glare she threw his way was a laceration to his skin and one finger came down on the photograph on the top of the pile.

"How did I know them? Kyo?! How did I know Kyo and Hatori before now? Why don't I _know_ that I know them?"

"Who are they?" Ignorance again. He was on unsteady ground. Trying to take in the bulk of the damage. Rika and Kyo, hand in hand as they slept. Hatori sitting over the girl with a wad of papers between them and laughter brewing in the corner of their mouths.

Rika drew breath. He saw the shake of her hands. The way her body strained below the effort of containment. Takuto hadn't seen her like this since that damn school trip and its aftermath, for all that he never knew what exactly triggered it. He wanted to sit her down. Ask was it the headaches. The nausea. Except she couldn't remember those. She hadn't been _allowed_ to remember them.

"He's in my class," She pointed to the image of Kyo, shoving that photo aside to reveal more, "And I've seen him at Shigures. I've seen nearly _all_ these people there."

"What did you say?" Takuto had to work at keeping his voice calm, at not snapping directly at his daughter. She couldn't have known the panic her words would incite in his chest, how completely paralysed by fear he would become just to hear her say the name _Kyo_ once again. He'd never quite comprehended his daughter's friendship with that boy, the bulk of the support having always come from Kimiko.

_Relax darling_, she would say, _It's just young love…_

So he'd endured it, even when the intricate hierarchy of the Sohma family threatened his wife's sanity. When it took his daughter into the inner compound and spat her back out a mere shell of a child. It had been why they'd moved away in the end, seeking to break the connection once and for all. Free both Rika and Kimiko from whatever misguided duty they felt towards everyone in that damn family. For Rika it had also required hypnosis, a technique practiced by the young Hatori at the time. Hearing _his_ name too. That was even worse.

Takuto had hated the idea of meddling with Rika's mind, of robbing her of the experiences that had made her who she was. Seeing the change that had come over her after it, he'd never looked back. Until now.

Returning to Tokyo had been a risk, but when they'd lived in the external compound there'd been a system. Those of the main families sent their children to private schools, _not_ places like Kaibara high. Not places where he'd foolishly sent his own daughter because he thought she'd be safe.

That expectation was crashing down, painful and terrifying.

Hatori had explained that hypnosis wasn't infallible. It could be broken with exposure to the wrong elements, to people from her past. So then why did she recognise them all? Why hadn't Hatori _warned _him.

_Kaibara wasn't meant to have them_.

"Dad what aren't you telling me?" Takuto looked up, saw the concern in his daughter's eyes and made a choice. He lunged at her, tugging the items from the table. Shoving them back into the safety box that they'd been released from.

"Out! Now! Get out!" The hurt was sudden and sharp on her face. Just as quickly, it was gone. She'd closed him out again.

"Fine," Her voice shook and he could see the strain it took for her to fight him, "_Whatever_. I don't know why I bothered to ask you! You never bothered to listen before. Why would it be different _now_." His world was falling down around his ears, the slam of her bedroom door telling him he was alone. Paralysis felt like the natural reaction to the rug that had been pulled from beneath him. Paralysis wouldn't correct this damage. So Takuto had to act. Scrambling towards the phone he called the number he found in the directory, the long drawn out blips only increasing the tension in his chest. When a woman answered his tone was clipped but polite and it took thirty minutes of badgering before he found out where to find Hatori Sohma and even convinced the woman on the line to notify the man that he was coming.

He'd watched Rika fall apart over those damn Sohma kids once. Takuto wouldn't do it again. He _couldn't_.

Which left him with a single option. He would need to convince Hatori to take away all traces of the Sohma's once again and then move elsewhere. Takuto had to protect his daughter at all costs, even if the price was her hating him for tearing her life up at the roots. As far as he was concerned - it was damn well worth it.

He didn't knock at Rika's door before opening it, earning him a shout of protest in return.

"Get dressed. We're going for a drive." She opened her mouth to protest and he raised a finger in return. "Once we're there, I'll explain it. Just get ready." His hand remained aloft to silence her protests. "We're leaving in ten minutes." With that, he retreated to his own room. Now wasn't the time for desolation, he told himself that, but no amount of logic stopped the bile racing up from his stomach.

_What had he done?!_


	10. Chapter 10

Hatori had gotten a phone call just after ten, warning him that he would have both Takuto and Rika Hayashi on the doorstep of the vacation house within the next hour. Which, even under normal circumstances, would've been immensely worrying. With Akito present and tethering on an utterly foul mood? He didn't want to think of the consequences.

Still, as he lingered in the gardens under moonlight, Hatori couldn't help but wonder what had inspired the call. He'd been keeping a close eye on the situation, as had Shigure - but if Takuto was trying to contact him directly then it meant something had changed. The tides had shifted again and for all his careful waiting - _it was going to backfire again_.

Kneading his eyes below the heels of his hands, Shigure's voice drew his attention back towards the house.

"Tori? What're you doing out here so late?" Hatori didn't have the energy to summon a snappy response.

"Takuto. He contacted the main house looking for me. Said he's bringing Rika to us." Shigure's face darkened, a glance towards the house again all the answer he needed to give. Neither of the men were stupid (as much as Hatori might claim otherwise at times), and though Akito had tolerated much more than they had expected of late - this might well have been the can of worms that sent everything scuttling back to where it had been not so long ago.

"Do you think she's finally remembered?" Hatori shook his head, uncertain. More than one emotion was warring in his chest, fighting for purchase. Terror was the greatest. Below it was something of a betrayal. _Hope_. No, he wasn't allowed that. Not after what he'd done to that child. "It wouldn't be the worst thing would it?"

"Stop that," Hatori's voice was firm. Strained. "Stop using people like that."

"It's hardly using her if she _wants_ to come back is it? You more than anyone know -,"

"I know how that girl looked when she was finally beaten down to a spectre. You didn't see her Shigure. You couldn't - you can't _know_ what she wants. She would've been better off if she never even crossed paths with us again." Despite the ferocity of the statement, Hatori's body felt heavy with longing. A desire to do things right this time around, to open the doors again for her to come back. How long had he waited for this? Hoping each time he dropped by Shigure's that there would be a flicker of recognition in her eyes? Something tangible that he could hold onto. He couldn't put it into words how it felt when her eyes slid past him. When she apologised for each mistaken little touch or lingering glance.

"How much of it is fate do you think?" Shigure's voice was soft, "Her returning to Tokyo like this. Ending up at Kaibara. I know you feel it too. The little bit of excitement every time Tohru says she's inviting her over for dinner. Or to stay the night."

"Don't be a damn pervert."

"You _know_ that's not what I mean Tori." It was true. As much as he wished he didn't, Hatori _did_ know what Shigure meant. It wasn't anywhere near what Akito inspired, that bone deep need to be in the god's orbit. To have their praise and love washing over them. Few people could comprehend the bond that the zodiac created. It wasn't like normal love. It was something twisted and desperate and sharp as the taste of blood on one's tongue.

Hatori rubbed a hand along his jaw, feeling the beginnings of stubble below his touch. His skin, just like the Zodiac's and their ability to love, was filled with flaws.

"We can't entertain it Shigure. The last time -,"

"The last time we were still children. It was easy for us to pretend that those things didn't affect us, but I can't do that again. Can you? Can you unpick it all in her head and send her off without knowing how different it might be - can you bear that?"

"She deserves the chance to have a family." Both men started violently, turning to see Kureno bathed in the light creeping out from inside the house. Shigure's entire body stiffened noticeably and Hatori dropped a steadying hand against his shoulder.

It was rare for their cousin to make an appearance without Akito at his side, but rarer still for the man to speak to them directly.

"It's Rika isn't it?" Neither Hatori nor Shigure spoke, though the former did give the barest incline of his head. "We can't get back Kimiko. We can't fix that - but we _can_ let her daughter back in. We can try and set it right."

"And if her father wants to take her away again?"

"Then we make sure that this time she gets the choice. Without being bullied or coerced into it." Hatori almost laughed. _Bullied_. Rika hadn't been bullied. She'd been flayed until all that of her was left was a child trying to please their god. A girl protecting her first love. Even at twenty Hatori had seen that. At twenty-seven he had to do better. _More_. Sighing, he looked away towards the ocean and drew a hand over his face. Pressure in his upper arm was Shigure's attempt to draw his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Whatever you choose to do Tori - I'll support it." Kureno had vanished back into the house, either because he'd been beckoned or had finished saying his piece. Hatori straightened his back and gave a nod.

"In any case, it's best I meet them away from the house. If anything happens in the meantime, I'll have my cell phone."

* * *

It had taken him time to grab his supplies and start the car. Before leaving, the man had walked the perimeter of the various houses to make sure that Takuto and Rika hadn't arrive while he was busy and then gotten on his way. With luck he could catch the two before they hit the grounds and divert them to one of the peripheral houses. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the possibility of removing Rika's memories again, not least because this time he wanted to do better. _Be _better. Shigure was correct in describing that bond too. From the moment she'd appeared back before him he could feel it, buried just below the surface.

A thread connecting them all. Taut and tiny, as liable to break as it was to last but there nonetheless. The roads seemingly quiet as he drove, it was a shock to turn a bend and see multiple vehicles stopped with full lights on.

Less than four miles from the house, the road was engulfed in chaos. Flashing lights were the first warning sign. Shattered glass. A tree divided the tarmac, bark shattered and torn up from the impact of a vehicle. On the other side of the road, another car had flipped.

Emergency services were already on the scene, firemen setting up cranks to cut away the roof of the car that had hit the tree.

Parking at a safe distance, Hatori got out to offer assistance. The EMT's surely had everything under control, but until the chaos cleared it would be impossible for him to continue his journey to find Takuto and Rika. It was just as likely they were caught on the other side of this mess.

He'd traded in his suit shoes for something more comfortable but still proper, straightening the knot of his tie as he approached the people on the scene.

"Do you need help? I'm a doctor." He reached into his pocket for identification before they asked, the glance downward making him aware of the bodies on the road. Two had been laid out on stretchers and covered. Hatori's stomach lurched. He was too late to offer any real help there.

"We've got everything under control Sir," A female EMT answered with a tight smile, hands working through a kit that was hooked onto her waist, "Once we have the last victim extracted from her vehicle we'll be on our way."

"What happened," He asked, "Is it just the three people involved?" The EMT inclined her head and pointed towards the flipped car.

"Seems so. An elderly woman was killed on impact. Looks like her car swerved into the wrong side of the road and hit the other one. Driver of that had his door crushed and obviously tried to protect his kid by turning the car away. Trouble was, seems he didn't account for the trees. She's alive," The EMT seemed to register something in Hatori's face, "But the passenger's side door was crushed so -," She waved towards the scene behind her.

"We were lucky someone came upon the whole thing so quickly."

He'd stopped registering her words moments earlier, skin turning pallid as a slow creeping dread rose in his gut. A man and his daughter. _A man and his daughter_.

What were the chances it could be someone else? _Anyone_ else.

Hatori was moving before the woman could catch hold of his arm, purpose driving him forward.

"Excuse me Sir - _Sir_ \- you can't go over there."

His voice was caught somewhere in the center of his chest as he pulled back the covering on the bodies. First an elderly woman. The second -

_Takuto._

Hatori's stomach bottomed out violently, words only coming as the EMT caught up with him and tried to pull him away.

"Stop! I know the girl. She's family! She's my - _she's family_."


	11. Chapter 11

Hatori was miserable. Three days she'd been unconscious now, a machine hooked over her face, arms punctured with needles. The whole thing threw him violently back to their youth, reliving the wretched game he'd once played.

_How many bruises can I see today? _

It had been a way to keep his temper in check, forcing a clinical eye to an emotional task. His father had been the first to suggest it, noting how deeply each subsequent appearance of Rika affected him. Maybe the man had known then the strangeness of her birth - or at least suspected.

Why else did Hatori return to her side time after time?

Why did the other Sohma Zodiac darken their doorstep whenever she was back in recuperation?

Even more so, how did she get the most ostracised one of them all to trust her?

After she'd gone, Hatori had puzzled through those thoughts for years. Was it nurture - Kimiko's kindness and optimism made whole again in her daughter? Or did it grow like the bond they shared with Akito - seeded upon first meeting and blossoming until they simply couldn't deny themselves the bone deep pleasure her presence left them with? That sensation of _wholeness_. They were cursed. Ruined. Only through each other did they find something that filled in the gaps.

He had come to the hospital in the wake of the accident. Found a way to excuse himself from the vacation home thanks to Akito's sudden leaving, though no less destruction in her wake than normal. Hatori had said little while patching up Tohru and Momiji, not having a clue how to do so without betraying what he knew. That their friend, that _his _Rika was alone. In surgery. So he'd carried it alone, waiting for the right moment to let people know.

Rika tethered up to a hospital bed. An orphan. His heart ached with the reality of it. Keeping her at a distance would no longer be an option. With her father there, with Kimiko to protect her, Hatori had been able to accept the prospect of never seeing her again. For a while, the man had even carved out a life all his own.

What was it, he wondered, that made the curse so potent and cruel?

Was it fate, as Shigure suggested, or simply that they were all inherently depraved half-people? Flawed. Broken. Even Rika, one arm strapped over her chest in a cast and her head covered in bandages. Skin mottled with red and purples and greens, a sunset of violence that there was no accurate way to describe.

How could he tell them?

How did he _dare_?

So Hatori did all he could do. Made promises to be a man of snow, prayed for happiness and health. Then buried his face in his hands and wept.

* * *

"_Hatori, I need to head out. Keep an eye on Miss. Hayashi for me in case she wakes?" Hatori's father stood in the doorway, distracting the fourteen-year-old from the homework that should have been completed by now. If Shigure and Ayame hadn't been so determined to pull him into their shenanigans, he'd have been finished hours ago. and now this?_

"_Of course," He answered because that was what he was meant to do, a wistful sigh exhaled as he closed his book. "Will you be gone long?"_

"_I need to see to Yuki, he's had another attack. Depending on its severity I could be gone an hour. Maybe longer. She likely won't wake. You can take your work and just be there." Nodding, he gathered up his books and dutifully moved to the small bedroom that had been commandeered as a hospital room for the Zodiac's. For many minor injuries it was easier to treat them in-house but of late it seemed the Hayashi child had been spending the bulk of her time here._

_He'd always adored Kimiko, mostly because she'd been encouraging about his work but her daughter - he knew little of the girl. Part of it was due to her living outside of the central estate but the greater aspect was because she was almost seven years his junior. What on earth were they meant to speak about?_

_Taking the spot in the chair, he realised the wicker felt warm. His father had been sitting vigil here. That was the first strangeness he felt. The second was seeing large amber eyes looking out at him from below a tightly pulled sheet, wide and wary. Hatori couldn't describe the feeling it elicited, how he went from apathy to instant connection. It was just like being in the presence of Akito. Although, weaker. More subtle. _

"_Why're you here?" The voice was small but petulant, such an emphasis placed on the you that it made Hatori's mouth twist into a smile._

"_I thought you were asleep?"_

"_I was only pretending." The sheet shifted, revealing a pale face marked with shades of yellow and purple. Hatori had to do his best not to recoil from the visual, saved only by the girl's subsequent question. "What're you reading about?"_

_He lifted the nearest textbook, turning it over. _

"_It's science."_

"_What kind of science?" Hatori settled further into his seat, trying to come up with an explanation that wouldn't baffle the child. Failed. _

"_All kinds of science." _

"_Can I read it?" _

"_Are you able?" Her scoff cut him, rustling of sheets sounding as she forced her way out of the bed and moved to stand before him. A large t-shirt dwarfed her frame, face thin. She looked like a child who'd just recently had a growth spurt, leaving behind puppy fat and replacing it with limbs that were too long and drawn. He looked again at the shirt and realised it was one of his. A finger was jabbed towards the material. "Where'd you get that from?"_

"_I dunno. Your dad gave it to me when I wouldn't wear the ones my mom dropped off." Hatori hitched an eyebrow. _

"_Why wouldn't you wear them?"_

"_Cause they had _bows_ on them. Do I look like someone who wears _bows_?" She'd come to a seat on the floor in front of him, taking the book out of his hands without waiting for him to agree. Her weight was sleight and Hatori wondered again how he hadn't fully seen the child before. _

_Everyone in the Sohma family knew of Kimiko - she had practically raised half their children, himself included - but when she'd had her child she'd moved out of the main compound and into the extended houses. It had made sense at the time but sitting beside her Hatori felt the hum of a thread curling itself against his heart. Why did being in her presence feel like this? Why hadn't he felt it before now?_

_Stiffening, he realised that he had. He had felt this before. He'd been hardly more than Rika's age at the time, but shortly after Akito had been born there'd been something. A frisson that he'd discussed with Ayame and Shigure, something they'd both admitted they'd felt too though none of them could determine why. After all - they had their god. _

_No one had ever considered there could even be a second. _

"_Miss Hayashi -," He started, hesitant._

"_Rika." She corrected him, the textbook looking too large in her hands. _

"_Rika," He amended, "You've been here a lot. Why?" She shrugged, though he didn't miss how she flinched. Before he could ask anything further, she began to read the words aloud, choosing a chapter on chemistry to start with. Unsure how to ask what he wanted without her shutting him off again, Hatori contented himself to listen to the way her voice sounded. To assist her when she stumbled over words and asked for explanations. At some point she demanded he sit beside her in the bed to make reading easier, Hatori acquiescing because he didn't possess the faintest ability to reject her. _

_Somewhere in the time there, he'd fallen asleep and when he woke it was to the click of a closing door and the realisation that the girl had sprawled across his chest. His heart picked up in the strangest mix of fear and exhilaration. She was a girl. Her body was pressed against the thin fabric of his shirt. He was, somehow, still _human_. _

_Tentatively reaching out, Hatori brushed at the long strands of fair hair before lifting the blanket his father had clearly placed on them both. Making sure the girl was completely covered, Hatori sighed and allowed himself this off comfort, closing his eyes again and succumbing once again to sleep._

* * *

"Dr Sohma?" In the doorway stood a woman of his own age, a badge flashing at her hip. In her hands was a bag. Her expression was sombre.

"Yes?"

"How is she?" The woman asked before remembering herself and bowing. "I'm Detective Asami Ito. I've been assigned to the investigation for Miss Hayashi."

Hatori felt his heart sink. So, there _was_ to be a case. It suggested that the police believed there'd been some kind of foul play in the crash. It didn't cross his mind that it was all a perfunctory thing. Hatori _wanted_ someone to blame for all this, and without himself as a target he needed the hope that there could be an answer for Rika when she woke.

Looking away from the woman, he studied Rika for a moment. Three damn days she'd been under. The surgeons had said it wasn't unusual for someone coming from a traumatic head injury to be kept in a mild coma until any swelling had been reduced and the extent of the damage determined. Which didn't exactly make it easier to bear.

"She'll recover in time." Was his response, the man rising to be polite. Detective Ito waved him back down and moved to his side.

"No long-standing damage?" He shook his head.

"They can't know until she wakes. Her head hit the dashboard at impact and there'd been swelling that required corrective surgery." Saying it aloud shifted his world back into the tilting, whirling anxiety he'd been living with since he'd realised who was in the car. Patience already at the end of its line, Hatori looked back to the woman. "Not to be impolite, but what exactly can I do for you?"

"Nothing at the present time. My colleagues and I have finished our preliminary investigations of both vehicles involved, but there were some effects belonging to Miss Hayashi that we wished to return to her."

She held the bag aloft for him to take and he transferred it to the space beside the chair he'd taken up residence on.

"I'll see to it she receives it."

Detective Ito smiled, hands moving back towards her pockets. She was holding on to a question and Hatori looked at her expectantly.

"At the moment, we have little evidence to suggest that Miss Hayashi or her father were at fault but speaking to her will confirm that. Could you give me a call when she wakes? I'd like to conduct a small interview."

"With all due respect detective, our Rika has suffered a head injury. There's little chance she'll recollect anything of the accident." Hatori froze, eyes moving past the detective to note his cousin in the doorway. Wearing, it seemed, one of _his_ suits.

"And you are?" The detective asked, turning to look at Shigure. Hatori had to stop his eyes from rolling, the woman's interest clearly piqued by the other Sohma. It was like high school all over again, droves of girls throwing themselves at Shigure or Ayame. Not that it ever really bothered him beyond the crass descriptions of their exploits. Hatori sank back into his chair, one elbow on the armrest and hand against his forehead. He hadn't slept properly in days, but _how_ did Shigure manage to find him.

He must have zoned out for the next thing he saw was his cousin waving a hand in front of his face.

"I sent her away. She seemed happy enough to accept that we control the interview when it happens." Hatori's head was a mess of emotions, the least of which he wished to tackle being the guilt over keeping the past few days from his family. Which, with a remarkable ability to find his weak spots, Shigure zeroed in on. "So, when exactly were you going to share _this_ development?"

Hatori swore under his breath, Shigure's skills never did seem to tend towards patience. Even when it came to Akito. Nevertheless, Hatori didn't shy away from a fight. At least not where his dignity was concerned.

"Once I knew she was awake and recovering."

"Just like you," Shigure tutted at him and Hatori felt his fuse spark, "Keeping her to yourself again. I was wondering how long it would take." He scoffed, crossing one leg over the other and kicking the bag that the detective had dropped off in the process. It _clinked_. Both men looked downwards and Hatori reached for the bag and poured its contents into his lap.

A safety box, catch broken.

Within it - photographs. Letters. _Memories_.

"Oh _Kimi_ -" Hatori's flare of temper faded at the sorrow in his cousin's voice, man leaning over his shoulder to snag one or two of the photographs. Most were of Rika and the various Sohma children. A number had been captured at Hatori's house, that old clinic room in the background. All of them were candid. Despite the rules, Kimiko had catalogued each part of Rika's life before the incident and _kept the evidence._

_This_ was what had brought Takuto to get into the car that night. Guilt surged, ragged and cold against his heart. It _was_ his fault. He'd been selfish. He'd left Rika with a hidden doorway to this. He'd not warned Takuto the moment she'd wandered back into their lives. Instead he'd practiced caution and detachment, waiting to see what might happen.

"Don't do that Tori," Shigure cut through the dull ache in his stomach, "You're not to blame for this. Kimi is the one that kept these memories. She _knew_ the risk of Rika finding them."

There was logic in that. A person to blame. Yet it changed nothing. Hatori's gut was a rolling sea of acid and regret, eyes flickering between the note in his lap to the young woman in the cot. The damn curse had brought them back to this. He'd defied his god for Rika and by doing so knocked each little domino slowly into place until they were here.

"That hardly makes this _right_." He shoved the scrap of a letter at Shigure, throwing the various photographs back into place. Looking at them was too difficult. It was a history that had been rewritten time and again. A history he wasn't entitled to claim any longer as much as his very being screamed out for the familiarity of the young woman before him.

Shigure read the note and crumpled it in his hands, shoving the paper into his pocket.

"That's nothing but high emotions. There's nothing _wrong_ with Rika. You'd have seen if there was."

"But what -,"

"Don't but _what_. Don't play the blame game again Tori. You saw what it did to Kana. To _you_." Hatori went rigid in his seat, eyes flashing dangerously.

"Don't lecture me on _that-_."

"I wouldn't dream of it. I'm merely pointing out that living that way does nothing for Rika right now." And there was the crux of the issue. Hatori was having to reconstruct the scenario for that night. Takuto, driven by fear to bring Rika to him - to _what_? Slice away at the core of her being yet again in the hopes that she wouldn't fall back into the Sohma family trap. Would he have done it, or cautioned Takuto? Found a way to convince Akito that this wasn't a bad thing for Rika to return.

And _now_ -

"I'll speak to her." Hatori looked up, trying to piece together what exactly his cousin meant. Shigure had turned away from him, hands buried deep in the pockets of the slacks he wore. "Akito. I'll make sure we don't have to turn Rika way."

"That won't be an easy win." If it might even be a win at all. So much bad blood had been swept under that bridge over the years that no matter how often Shigure implied that the curse was weakening - it had only made Akito grasp all the harder. They'd kept Rika's presence from the Sohma head only through chance and good luck. As an orphan, she was entitled to her family. To _support_. Which he could only offer if she was somewhere within the city.

Which was all assuming that Rika, once awake and in possession of her memories, even _wanted_ to stay.

He certainly wouldn't have.

"I'll suggest she can stay with me." Hatori had rested his forehead against the back of his hand again, accepting the silence that had fallen to be the last word on the matter. Instead, it seemed Shigure had been considering options. It was the two of them in a nutshell. Hatori, endlessly dwelling over the past and propriety. Shigure looking forward. "It'll be a temporary fix, but it should do for now. Akito allows Tohru to stay so -,"

He didn't finish the sentence and Hatori knew the line of argument that was going to be utilised. Convince Akito she was more beautiful. Benevolent. _Revered. _That Rika's presence would serve only as a warning for what happened to those who stepped beyond the Sohma sphere. Abandonment. Pain. _Isolation_.

Funny, he could've easily said the same for those _inside_ the family too. Shigure's hand came down on his shoulder. Swept the safety box back into the bag along with all its damning contents.

"You get some rest if you can. With luck, she'll be awake and perfectly fine tomorrow - until then I'll hold onto these too for safe keeping." Hatori could sense the desperate will Shigure infused into his words and all at once recalled how desolate his cousin had been after Rika had left. How broken they _all_ were. He raised his head and called the man back from the doorway with a question.

"How did you find me?" Shigure laughed, tugged out a business card from his pocket and tossed it his way.

"I took a call pretending to be you. Imagine _my_ surprise when they said whose condition they were updating you on." He tutted again and Hatori didn't have the energy to get angry over it. Shigure had forced some perspective and opportunity before him, enough that Hatori could at least sleep without fear of what he might have to tell the others when he woke. The drum of fingernails on the doorway told him Shigure was still there.

"I'm going to tell Kyo. He deserves to know about this too."

Hatori nodded resignation. Rika was going to need all the support she could get, _even if _he wanted to be the only one to offer it. It was a misguided desire to set it all right, but knowing that didn't make the strength of it any less potent.

"And Takuto," Shigure continued, "I'm going to make the funeral arrangements. At least then it won't be waiting for her when she wakes." Again, another deliberate action that Hatori hadn't had the strength to consider. Thanking his cousin, Shigure left and Hatori settled back into his seat with his hands folded over his stomach. Now all he had to do was wait.

_And hope_.


	12. Chapter 12

He had been sitting by her bedside for days. Rika knew it, even if she refused to acknowledge it. Why Hatori Sohma had seen fit to be at her side when she woke was still beyond her, but Rika could barely think about it without feeling ill.

The crash came back in fragments.

Screeching tyres.

Screaming.

The scent of burning fuel and blood.

All of it made her gag when her mind lingered on it too long. The pain medication clouded her brain most days, blocking out the broken arm and fractured ankle. Stalling the itchiness of all the stitches she'd gained along with the bandages that still covered her forehead. Doctors said there's been a lot of glass. She was lucky to have her eyesight. Lucky to be alive. Lucky. Lucky.

_Lucky_.

Hatori had arrived early that particular morning, bundling her into a wheelchair and dragging her outside to the adjacent garden. Before he'd even opened his mouth, she knew what he was going to say.

"Your nurse told me you haven't been eating. You'll never recuperate if you keep at this Rika."

Rika played with the soft fabric of her dressing gown using her good hand, tracing the stitches back and forth in petulant silence. Her petulance existed only out of self-preservation. If she opened her mouth then maybe all that would come out would be screams. Screams that had no end or completion. Screams that tore her throat and burned her eyes to ash.

The routine became the same.

Hatori visited. Dragged her out to the garden. Begged her to eat. By the fifth day he had reached some kind of limit and Rika watched him out of the corner of her eye. A packet was dislodged from his pocket, one cigarette pulled loose and pressed between his lips. A lighter _snicked _open and then the smell of smoke filled her lungs. There was something comforting in it and Rika found that she'd taken a deep breath. One that made her ribs ache.

"I thought that's bad for you." He almost dropped the cigarette in his shock but Rika noted a quick recovery. A face returned to calm apathy. She found that in the midst of her emptiness, she liked surprising him. It gave her a thrill. The past few days had left her little else to do and the relief that he emanated when he thought she wasn't paying attention was starting to get under her skin.

"I'm the doctor here. Aren't you a cheeky to be offering advice?" It was the first time she'd heard anything but professional disengagement from the man and despite her condition, Rika's mouth twitched into a faint smile.

"I almost died anyways. At least I didn't put the killing thing between my teeth to do it."

"But you sat in it. It was the vehicle that did it." Rika couldn't deny the logic in his words but it didn't stop her hands spasming into fists or the flare of anger in her chest.

"We were only -" It hurt to say it, the _we_, because if she pretended she was the only one in the vehicle then it didn't have to be real. She'd been the only one there. The only passenger. Except, if that were the case, it wouldn't be Hatori Sohma sitting beside her in a depressing hospital garden. Her father would be there. Inconsolable. Desolate. _Relieved_.

She inhaled sharply, the smoke faint but there. Whether it was nicotine or something else in the air, it calmed her. Stopped the rising panic before it could drown her. Perhaps part of that came from Hatori himself who had rested a hand against hers, capturing her fingers. He offered a comforting pressure before releasing her again and Rika nearly wilted from the pity of it all. That was why he was there after all, wasn't it? _There was no one else_.

She sought for something, anything, to say. She'd been too comfortable in her silence.

"Why do you smoke?"

Hatori have a small shrug, glancing at her sideways. It was only then she realised that he'd always placed her at his right-hand side. Was there something garish on _her_ right side that he couldn't bear to look at? Her hand moved to her cheek absently. Nothing _felt_ out of place, but then, _what did she care if it did?_

"It forces me to relax. To take the time to step outside or sit down. It's not a healthy habit, but it's better than others."

"You could try Yoga instead." She offered dryly. He chuckled.

"I tried but downward dog was always more of Shigure's thing." There was an undercurrent of something in his words. A challenge. Rika grimaced.

"I'd rather not know about those things and Shigure." Her nose wrinkled. "Frankly, looking him in the eye is hard enough when he makes comments about schoolgirls every time I visit the house."

Hatori sighed. Deeper this time. "He's such a damn pervert." A pause. "One who _has_ offered you a place to stay. If you wish."

Rika stiffened, head turning away from the man. A place to stay. How could she even _consider_ that yet?

"I have an apartment." She didn't add the obvious. An apartment filled with memories now. Memories _alone_. Her father wouldn't be waiting for her in the mornings or cooking her favourite breakfasts. They'd never finish that terrible argument. Rika raised her hand to her face, obscuring the sudden heaviness of her eyes. She had been terrible to her father after her mother's death, filled with bitterness and anger and spite. Fear. He hadn't known how to speak to her any more than she had known how to speak with him but all that was rising ahead of her now was the knowledge that there wouldn't be a chance to learn. No amends to be made. He wouldn't be there to see her graduate. Attend university. Marry. Have children. _Become_ something.

Her chest felt like it was fracturing from within, ribs folding and creaking beneath the weight of her heart. There had been grief when her mother died, but it had been slow. Easy to see coming. Time for them to weep together about all the days they were going to miss. Right now, there was no more time. No second chances. Nothing.

_Nothing_.

"Rika," Hatori's face swam into view before her and she wondered when he'd moved. When he'd forced her head forward with a firm grasp, fingers tangled in fine hairs at the back of her neck. "Breathe Rika. Please. _Breathe." _

She wanted to tell him that she was. That it was something else suffocating her from within, hands curled hard and fast around her diaphragm. Knotting against her lungs. Her body was collapsing in on itself. Something had lodged itself in her throat. Blocked her airways. Hatori's face came in and out of focus, tears and panic making her head roil. Her stomach seized.

A pinching sensation hit her arm and before she could protest, blackness closed around her.


	13. Chapter 13

Visitors trickled in at Hatori's say so. First Kyo. Then Tohru, Uo and Hana. Yuki dropped off fruit. Momiji and Haru came by and sat with her. It was smothering. Comforting. _Strange_. Rika hadn't had friends like these in a very long time, at least not ones willing to sit and endure sullen silences. The occasional bubbling over of tears.

Back in Okinawa she had been social. Played the routines of sleepovers and secrets offered behind hands. Pretended to share an interest in the dating and experiences that went with it. In Okinawa, she had never told anyone about the isolation. The headaches. Her mother's occasional retreats. Father's absenteeism. Each person who appeared in her hospital room somehow knew it all. Accepted that her dad's death and the accident were going to uncover emotions she could barely process.

Confusion at the memory gap of that day.

Anger that they'd been in that car, on that road at _that_ time.

Over it all, sorrow. Guilt. _Regret_.

The girls filled their visits with updates from the first days back at school that she was missing, Rika unable to return until doctors were one hundred percent happy with a final set of scans due within the next week. Hana sat at her side, folding and twisting her hair into braids to make it easier to maintain with a broken arm. Uo regaled her with the updated story on her mystery man, _Kureno_. Tohru refused to explain the bandages on her face beyond some tale of bug hunting in the woods near the summer home with Momiji. His own injured face lent some credence to the tale but where once Rika might have followed her suspicions, now she found it hard to even match the energy of her friends during their short visits.

Kyo, most of all, surprised her.

He came at odd hours, wads of paper in hand. Prattled on about his training at the dojo as he nudged her fingers into creating something other than a flat sheet. When she inevitably grew frustrated, he would simply sit at her side, huddled into the bed with her. Would take her undamaged hand into his lap and tell her that she could sleep now. She was _safe_.

The whole thing reeked of an old habit, but where it came from, Rika didn't know.

It was in this position that he began to speak softly, a thumb trailing over the back of her hand. Tracing the small scratches and bruises that had finally started to fade.

"Rika," He said her name tentatively, the young woman rolling her head so that she could see his face, "I know you're probably not ready to hear this, but I just want to say it. If you - if you ever need to talk about stuff. The crash. Your mom. Your dad. Any of it. Just -," Her heart had picked up speed and Kyo stared determinedly at the wall rather than look at her, "When you're ready for that, if you'd like - I'll be your family. Or even just your friend. Whatever works best for you and - stuff."

He trailed off lamely and Rika's tears this time were mercifully devoid of panic. They were formed of simple appreciation for stumbling across these people. For how they came to her side time and again, offering kindness or support or _anything_. It was more than she had ever had. More than she could bear in one small, broken body.

"Geez you're as bad as Tohru and the crying." Kyo sounded uncomfortable but he softened when Rika wrapped her arm around his. Pressed her head against his shoulder. Breathed her _thank you_ into the growing dampness of his shirt. True to his word, Kyo stayed at her side until there were no more tears left to cry. Until she was too drained to do anything else. She felt him tuck hair behind her ear. Wipe away the moisture on her cheeks. After that, she felt no more.

* * *

"Hatori -" The man turned at his name to see Kyo, lingering in the doorway of the hospital waiting room he had commandeered to catch up on his paperwork.

"What is it? Did something happen?" The cool detachment was hard fought for but his palpable relief betrayed him when Kyo shook his head. His heart had given an uncomfortable stutter at the idea Rika was in trouble again but mercifully, that didn't seem to be the case. A glance back to the window told him it was later than he'd expected, night already falling outside. The Sohma cousins had only been granted special privileges for visiting Rika on the basis that Hatori take responsibility should anything go awry in their presence. So far, it hadn't been an issue.

"No, she's fine. Fell asleep again." His shoulders relaxed, folding up the notes he'd been writing and moving them aside to the small accumulated bundle on his left.

"Then what can I do for you?"

Kyo hesitated, a step forward. Back. Eventually he moved to sit across from him, the discomfort at Hatori's clinical eye plain to see. Kyo had never sought him out before, not without being dragged by someone else. That he had come of his own volition spoke volumes, but what it was _saying_ was static in the void. Indecipherable.

"Back then -," The cat was struggling to find the words, jaw working tautly back and forward, "When she left."

"Yes?"

"_Why_?" Hatori was surprised it had taken so long if he was honest. Kyo had been visibly affected by the reintroduction of Rika to their lives, let alone reconciling what he knew of the child and now had to learn of this strange young woman. Knowing that, and supporting it, were two very different things and so -

"Why _what_?" Hatori's tone was somewhat waspish despite his manufactured aura of _cool_. The knowledge that Kyo had been the catalyst for the chain of events leading to Rika's removal from the Sohma family back then was still raw. It seemed Kyo recollected it too, and his face flushed with humiliation.

"Why didn't she say goodbye? I get - I _understand_ that it was my screw up. I called her away and then -," Kyo fumbled the words, pushing his hands through his hair, "I just never understood why she didn't say _goodbye_."

Hatori hadn't been privy to that knowledge. Then again, part of him hadn't _wanted_ to know. He'd carried Rika's absence like a personal wound, the emptiness created in her wake a reminder that he no longer had his father. His mother. She had been a staple of his life between fourteen and twenty, the only person of the opposite sex besides Akito that he could hold without facing the reminder of his curse.

He'd not considered that maybe Rika had been that to Kyo too. To others. Akito was their god, but she didn't act with benevolence or generosity without reason behind it. Rika, as a child, had given away her warmth and affection as though they were in excess.

"After the incident," Rika leaving Kisa and Hiro in that damn park to flee to the dojo. The transformation witnessed by multiple children who had needed to be tracked down. Memories wiped, "At first those of us at the main house believed she had been taken back to Kimiko. It was only after -,"

Recounting the day was painful, Hatori recollecting Kimi's panicked accusations. His own rising fear and horror when no one seemed to know where the girl had vanished to. In desperation he'd cornered a maid, brought the woman to tears with his threads. Demanded the truth.

"She'd been in that room for two weeks Kyo. Fed, of course, but almost entirely in darkness. Akito her only contact with the outside world." That isolation, the terror - he could never imagine how it would have felt. It was why he hesitated at restoring her memories. With the structures that had supported her leaving back then in tatters, there was no knowing what kind of effect it might have on her. "She made an agreement with Akito. She would leave. Make her parents go too. Allow me to wipe every trace of all the Sohma's from her so that she would never be a threat. A _problem_." He spat the last word with venom, hands curled into his lap so that the fists that had formed wouldn't be visible.

He remembered the matting of her hair. How she'd wept and _wept_ when he'd appeared in the doorway, calling out his name. It had been the one time he'd made strides to defy Akito and successfully won, but the victory was short lived. When Akito had arrived on his heels, brimming over with rage and blind terror - it had been Rika that had stepped in front of him. Shielded him. On her knees she'd made the promise. She would leave. Absolve Akito of the stain of her presence. The reminder of the words spoken ignited the bile in his stomach, of how he'd simply stood there. Shocked. Unmoving.

/

"_Hari," Her wrist was thin, reaching out towards him and snagging his shirt, "Hari it's okay. It's okay. I promised." _

_He hadn't even realised he was weeping, young man on his knees before her. Akito had swept out, ordering the maids to relay the news to Kimiko and Takuto. By morning, their house would be empty. _

"_You didn't need to -,"_

"_I did." Her voice was soft, the rough fabric of the dress she'd been wearing since going missing two weeks previous bearing the brunt of her agitated curling fists. "It was my fault. I hurt Kisa. Hiro. They deserved better. I chose Kyo when I knew -" _

_The damn cat. How was it always that damn cat?!_

"_But -," The sobs taking over her now were whole bodied and painful to see, Hatori's own heart fracturing under the weight of them, "But please - please Hari don't take it all away. Leave me something. _

_Leave me you. Or Kyo. something small and dumb so I can know that I was happy here too. That I loved all of you so much it felt like my heart was going to burst. Leave me that feeling if you can. Please Hari." _

_His hands were shaking as he reached for her, young man near blinded by tears. Rika had released him. Bowed so that her chest and arms were pressed to the floor. Even that couldn't hide the way her body trembled below her sorrow. _

"_Just something. Please Hari." _

_He said he would. He promised. He'd have promised her the world to stop those tears. _

"_Anything." _

_Hatori drew her upwards, met her eyes. A new edge of desperation had filled her gaze and Rika reached for him; her voice barely a whisper._

"_You Hari," His heart fumbled a beat and he had to close his eyes, "Leave me you." _

_When he pressed his hand to her forehead, she wilted into his open arms. He allowed himself to hold her for a moment. To recollect the way it felt with her there. How endlessly soft her hair had always been. The weight of her body on his chest. How her hand fit into his. His head rested against hers as he sobbed. Grieved. _

_/_

"He sent her away immediately?" Hatori nodded. Even Shigure and Ayame had never asked the circumstances of Rika's leaving. though he'd always suspected the former had learned of it through Akito. Which likely meant Ayame knew too. For once, the pair had exercised enough common sense not to question him on it. It was a wound too raw to touch, even now.

"I returned her to Kimiko and by the next morning - they were gone." The house emptied of every trace that they'd ever existed. It was likely the only time he could recall Akito stepping up as the head of the household in a truly effective way and it had been done entirely out of spite.

Kyo leaned back into the seat he'd claimed, teeth worrying at his bottom lip.

"So, she'd never had a chance. To say goodbye." Hatori started to confirm it but the teen wasn't finished. "And if you give her back her memories now, she could remember what happened in that room."

Kyo sighed, visibly worn by the weight of it. Hatori thought it was nice for a change, to not have to bear the knowledge alone. What was more astounding, was the calm Kyo held onto. Thinking it through rather than raging against Akito. Which, truthfully, Hatori might have understood too. Somehow, he suspected there was a touch of Tohru Honda rubbing off on the teen. An effect that had long ago been mentioned by Shigure. Hatori sighed. He _hated_ when that man was right.

"We can't let her go again." Kyo eventually said, standing upright and his voice rising passionately. "No matter what Akito says or tries to do. We're the only family she has left and if you try to take her away - I'll find her. I'll tell her everything. I'll give her back everything at once because she deserves to have it all. People who love her and who she loves. She made a sacrifice for us. It's about time we made one for her."

Hatori didn't say that those were the very same arguments flowing through his own mind. Kyo needed a place to direct his anger and right now it was at the unfairness of it all. At the potential of Rika being turned out on the world without a family to lean on. Kyo stalked towards the door, lingering with a hand pressed against the woodwork. Turned back and fixed Hatori with a look he couldn't fathom the meaning behind.

"You should be there when she wakes up again. She'd like that."

With that, he was gone and Hatori packed up his paperwork. Withdrew back to the hospital room and its sleeping occupant. One of the nurses had set up a cot which he fell into, a hand thrown over his eyes.

_You Hari. Leave me you._


	14. Chapter 14

Of all the things she found most unbearable since returning to school - it was the sliding glance. People did it in a way that wasn't intentionally malicious. A flickering look here. Surprise at her state. Recollection to the whispered stories. A glimmer of pity. And then -

Their eyes slid past her.

Few of them met her face dead on for fear they'd share her fate; fewer still spoke to her. It was Tohru and the others that banded close. A revolving circuit of friends. Yuki walked with her between classes. Kyo sat with her at lunch. There were plans made, normality mapped out and in the midst of it all she felt smothered. _Trapped_.

The only place she didn't want to scream was when tucked into her room at Shigure's in Hatori's presence. He dropped by every other day to run an assessment. To size up whether her cast was ready to be removed. Oftentimes, little was said during the visits. Rika oscillated between her anger and shame. She wanted to thank the man. For all of it. The nights he'd spent at her bedside. How he'd managed the doctors for her and found ways to give her space when she needed it. Pushing her when he knew she could move a little further towards _something_ that might have been normality.

Instead he received sullen silences. Quiet consideration.

Rika hated pity. Always had. Hatori never pitied her, but he was an easy target for everything pent up after school. A channel for the anger to be directed towards. Shigure was impossible to insult, the man obstinately obtuse no matter what comment she passed. Kyo tolerated little of her moods. Tohru was too easy a target, therefore one Rika didn't dare to strike. Yuki, she didn't know enough to find his wounds.

Which left Hatori alone to bear the moments that she did reveal. Bitter words. Regrets. Each time her emotions bubbled over only made it all worse, a reminder of how weak she was. How little she could recall of the crash still, of the hours that preceded it. The Sohma doctor carried it all without complaint, shaking out a cigarette and leaning out her bedroom window when he'd finished his check-up. Waiting for the moment of her weighted quiet to tremble, _shatter_.

Within the hospital, Rika had been willing to share the broken shards with everyone else because _that's why they were there_. Finding a routine again, a means to keep surviving in spite of the fireball coursing its way through her veins, meant locking away the pieces of herself that betrayed just how lost she was.

She wasn't foolish. Rika knew they all suspected it was an act. Knew they wanted to claw the confessional words from between her teeth like diamonds. To crush the pain down until it was nothing more than a dull ache and a handful of stardust. That didn't make any of it easier to discuss.

"Eventually you're going to have to speak to someone Rika." Hatori suffered her sullen mood this particular day in a chair opposite her bed, his hands tucked between his thighs and his expression unmoving. The intervals for her silences had grown progressively longer. Where she should have been improving, she was getting worse. More distraught. Depressed. She turned her head away from him. Teeth grinding against each other, so that the muscles in her jaw were taut and strained.

She couldn't explain it.

In the hospital, there had been a bubble of safety. Her world whittled down to a few trusted forms and a space to open up within. Out in the real world, there was a shrine to visit. Pity to be observed. Avoidance to brush off. Friends to smother her. There was also schoolwork to be done, plans to be made to handle the school's parent-teacher conferences. That, _that_, most of all was a reminder. Rika bowed her weight forward, head between her knees.

Hatori's hand brushed over her hair. It caught her off guard just as firmly as it grounded her.

"I can't," She spoke it to the floor, blurred vision making it hard to see the smattering of tears that had already hit the woodwork, "I can't talk about it."

"Okay." The bed bowed under the weight of him sitting beside her, hand curling over her shoulder. "Okay. You don't have to."

It was hard to comprehend. _Why_ did he give into her? Why had slept he every night at her bedside in the hospital, within reaching distance when she woke shrieking from the nightmares. When she'd first woken up after the accident, she'd assumed he was just visiting, but somehow, he was always close at hand. Why did he endure the names she'd thrown at him the first few visits at Shigure's when she was boiling beneath the surface with every unchecked emotion? She felt like she was fifteen again, hormones raging through her body and demanding that each one be felt and addressed in turn.

All of it together was exhausting to a degree that _couldn't_ be explained.

The weight of his hand lifted away from her and the man moved towards the door. Rika grasped onto his suit jacket before she could stop herself. Before she could consider the impropriety of her endlessly dropping the weight of her emotions, of her physical self, against his willing form.

_Why was he so willing?_

"Rika?" Somewhere in the past few weeks, he'd ceased calling her Miss Hayashi. Allowed familiarity to creep into his voice. Sometimes, she even believed there was softness to how he addressed her. An unchecked feeling.

"When -," She sniffled, dragging the back of her hand over her cheek, "When they ran those scans, did it show anything -"

The tension in his suit jacket loosened as he stepped closer. Tipped her chin upwards with a finger.

"Did it show what?"

"My head. Is there -," _Something wrong with me_? "Before the accident even, I'd been having these headaches. Sharp, sudden ones. Like my own mind is fighting -,"

Hatori's expression gave away nothing but the tension in his fingertips did. He knew something. Even so -

"There is _nothing_ wrong with your mind Rika. There never was. Please remember that. You…" He trailed off, the warmth of his touch vanishing. "You're going to be okay. It doesn't feel like that yet, but you will."

Her follow up question was swallowed by the ferocity of his words and though Rika struggled to believe in herself that there _was_ such a thing as better, it seemed almost too easy to believe in him.

So she did.

* * *

"Alright," Kyo's voice cut through Rika's room, the teen sweeping in like a tornado and grabbing up random items of clothing from the boxes that had been moved in from her old apartment, "I've had enough. You're coming with me."

Rika, lying on her bed with one arm tossed over her eyes, didn't turn to look. This wasn't the first intervention. It likely wouldn't be the last. Each day she tried a little harder than before. School was a given since she wasn't allowed duck out of that, but when she got home in the evenings Rika still found solace in the small quiet room in Shigure's home. Still needed space to _think_.

Part of the solace she found in those four walls was its unfamiliarity. There were no photographs on the walls. No memories to be unearthed and send her reeling back to all the things she couldn't control, predict or cope with.

Routine. Boredom. Breathing.

That's all there was.

All there needed to be.

"Hatori says your ankle is fine now, and the cast is off your arm so -," Whatever it was Kyo was looking for culminated in an _ah-ha!_ A solid weight struck her face.

"What the hell?" Rika sat up, cheek cradled in her palm and one of her running shoes lying on the futon beside her. "Why did you throw that at me you ass?!"

"Because you're wallowing. You need to get up. Moving." It was funny, she thought, how he'd chosen to wait until the rest of the house was quiet to accost her. Tohru was working. Yuki had said over breakfast he was going to attend to his small vegetable garden. Shigure had some kind of publishing meeting. Rika had taken it as a relief. No sad looks or false smiles to be shared.

"You're annoying. Go away." She chucked the shoe back at him and rolled over to face the wall.

"Nope."

"Kyo, you're giving me a headache." The futon shifted under the weight of an extra body. Rika thought for a moment it would be like the hospital. A hand to curl around her. Supportive. _Gentle_. Instead she was lifted to her feet, propped up by Kyo's hands beneath her elbows.

"You know what'll help that?" He asked.

"You, _leaving_?"

"A walk. Get dressed. If you don't, I'll be back in five minutes to drag you out in your pyjamas." He slammed her door shut and the girl blinked.

"YOU'RE AN ASS!" She shouted it in his wake, glaring at the empty doorway for three of her five minutes before eventually moving.

Where the _hell_ had this come from? Grumbling beneath her breath, Rika found the clothes he'd placed out for her. Sportswear, her shoes. Even socks. True to his word, Kyo opened the door exactly five minutes later. He was met with mutinous compliance.

The air outside was cold.

The first ten minutes were nothing more than antagonistic silence, Rika burying her hands into her pockets for warmth against the chill in the air. Kyo seemed unbothered, a fact which annoyed her until he proclaimed he could beat her to the top of the next hill. It was then she realised he was trying to get her to compete. To _react_.

The stubborn part of her wanted to tell him to leave her alone again. To let her retreat back into the safe isolated haven she'd been crafting the past few weeks. What beat that out was the possibility of his smug gloating.

So they raced to the first hill. Then the next. Before long it had become an all-out run, the two of them neck in neck even with Rika weeks out of practice. By the time he stopped, the girl realised they were at the dojo. Leaning forward, palms on knees, Rika recalled that it had been nearly two months since she'd been there.

"Why did you bring me here?" She asked once her breath had returned, her sleeve used to dab moisture from her forehead. Kyo was stretching his shoulder, an arm pulled tight across his chest.

"Master is back. I figured it was about time you met him."

"Kazuma Sensei?" Rika had heard Rei speak about the man, and Kyo mentioned him often but until now she hadn't really given much thought to the owner of the dojo she'd been frequenting. Mostly because she'd been told he was on retreat for most of the time she'd been there.

Kyo didn't wait to answer her, striding forward and into the building. Rika sighed. Followed.

Rei's greeting was vivacious, the woman knocking her onto her ass and proclaiming that Rika needed more training. That she would be expected back first thing on Monday morning to pick up where they left off. Rika knew what was happening and was helpless to stop it. Kyo had pinpointed her sense of duty and combativeness. Was using it to bring her back to her feet. To breathe something _more_ into her daily life.

Part of her thought the endeavour was fruitless. How was she meant to be any good at martial arts when she just felt _empty_? Except standing in the dojo with Rei's smiling threats and her own heart still racing from the run - there was a flicker of _something_.

"Miss Hayashi, I presume?" A man's voice from behind her made her spin around, eyes widening at the face. That face. _She knew that face_. The awareness was sharp in her chest, another stabbing pain in her head. Rika staggered a step, eyes wide. Kyo was by her side in an instant.

"Hey, what's up?" She shook him off, embarrassed.

"Nothing," As quickly as the pain had come, it vanished, "It's nothing."

She recovered enough to say that yes, she _was_ Rika Hayashi. Despite the oddness of the man's presence, Rika survived first introductions. Then survived an official tour around the dojo. Observed a class being run by the man himself amid a gaggle of energetic middle schoolers. Most impressive of all, Rika managed to sit through dinner, meal ordered in especially for them. Kyo heavily implied the man was utterly destitute in the kitchen but in spite of this flaw, he was kind. Handsome. Being polite was straightforward enough, but for some reason when she caught the man smiling at Kyo - it made her heart flutter in her chest. _Why_? She couldn't have said.

Somewhere during the day, she found she wasn't affecting a false smile. Something genuine had crept its way forward.

Most shocking was the awareness that speaking to Kyo and Kazuma was _easy_. Familiar. There was a glimmer of history to it all, as though they'd done this all a thousand times before. The same jokes. The easy laughter. Finishing off her soup, Rika was caught off guard again.

"Kyo tells me you've had a trying time over the past few months." Rika shot the teen in question a venomous look but he had pointedly looked elsewhere.

"Yes, but thanks to the Sohma's and Miss Honda I've been very lucky."

"And your upcoming class career meetings," Rika froze, "Have you found someone to sit in with you on those?" She hadn't considered it. Truthfully, she had hoped that she would be allowed to speak for herself during it. Legally she _was_ able to do so. She said as much to Kazuma.

"I see." He seemed to pause. Consider something. "However, if you find you would like an adult present even just for moral support, I would be honoured to help out."

"Why?" The question was blurted. Rude. Kyo became very interested in rooting out the last of the rice in his bowl as if anticipating some awkward moment. Rika felt her cheeks heat but apologising now would have been insincere. Her voice softened as she added - "You barely know me."

"Perhaps that is true," The man had placed his chopsticks aside, hands folded one over the other on his lap. "However, I felt that if Kaibara pressures you into having an adult present, it might be more pertinent to have someone like myself present. Rather than Shigure."

Rika's eyes widened.

She was grateful to Shigure. She _was_. Having him sit in on a meeting that decided _her_ future however? The very idea of it sent a chill down her spine. He was hardly any more mature than she was. _Less_ so some days.

Her body bowed forward.

"Thank you. I will consider it and let you know."

"At your own leisure." Kazuma smiled again and Rika's head gave a low throb. She resisted the urge to knead her knuckle against her temple. "I do hope we shall get to see more of each other over the coming weeks. From what Rei tells me, you're quite the proficient fighter. I'd love to see you spar Kyo."

Rika, now knowing the full extent of Kyo's machinations, turned a cool gaze on the redhead.

"Oh yes. I do believe that _would_ be fun."

"Hey what're you looking at me like _that for_?!"

She ignored him.

"I'd like to see him spar you as well Sensei."

"Perhaps you will in time. It _has_ been a while since we did a proper fight. I shall have to see if he has improved any."

Kyo was boiling under the surface, the emotion plain to see in his face and Rika couldn't help but grin. Somehow, Kazuma had subverted her descent into depression over the parent-teacher conferences without breaking a sweat and for that, Rika was relieved. No fighting did occur over dinner, as much as she wanted to whack Kyo over the head for his manipulation, but within it she also saw the benefits of what the day had offered her. Kazuma's familiarity. Rei's exuberance. Rika's reignited competitive nature.

All of it together formed a window. A narrow one, but one that hadn't existed before.

When she'd been at her lowest before, martial arts had saved her. Who was to say it couldn't do so again?

* * *

A/N : Just a little thank you to everyone for the wonderful reviews/follows/favs that have happened especially in the last week! They've made a slow writing week become a plot churning machine and gave me a warm glowy feeling in my chest each time I see them! On a lesser note, I finally realised the formatting in my first 13 chapters was a bit of a mess so I've tidied those up! :D


	15. Chapter 15

The parent-teacher conferences arrived quicker than expected. Kazuma had stayed true to his word and attended Rika's once she'd clarified that she wasn't allowed to attend alone. He'd said little, only encouraging her to consider her options. Reminding her that she could always find work at a dojo, _his_ dojo, if she found nothing else that she wished to do. An offer which, while generous, had sat wrong with her. She loved her abilities in martial arts, and fostering them was important – but to do that her whole life? Particularly when the primary reason she had returned to get her high school diploma and progress onto university. In short, the day had given her more questions than answers but it had at least passed uneventfully.

Yuki had been less lucky, a dual appearance by his mother and brother leaving the teen reeling. Tohru too, had observed some strangeness in her meeting. Then again, that was to be expected when _Shigure_ was standing in as her adult presence. The whole routine had been an odd experience start to finish. Serving to remind Rika that she wasn't where she needed to be, nor was she at the same stage as her friends.

On a better turn, since the day at the dojo Rika had started to feel more _normal_ again.

A routine had been built. Compromise struck. Four times a week she made time to train with either Rei or Kazuma, building up her strength and stamina again. Occasionally she fought Kyo, the challenges becoming fewer sweeping wins on her side. More evenly divided. Kyo was getting stronger all the time and though Rika had spent years training, it was slowly becoming apparent that so had he.

As her physical health improved, so too did her ability to process the rest. She missed her dad. _Immensely_. That much was inevitable. Spending the rest of her life miserable and bitter wouldn't bring him back. Instead, she would have to fight and find a way to be strong in his memory.

She was finishing up a session with Rei when she spotted Uotani at the entryway of the dojo. Rika tossed her bag over her shoulder and went to join her classmate, easy smile on her face.

"Hi! What brings you here?"

"Was just in the neighbourhood. Said I'd walk you home if you'd like?" Rika nodded. Called her goodbyes to Rei and Kazuma.

The two fell into step together easily enough, Rika fixing the straps on her gear bag. Early conversation was simple. How was the other's day going since school? Complaints about the volume of homework they needed to do. Silence settled for a brief moment before it was broken by -

"You and Carrots…?" The question was surprising, not least because there was a hint of something like a _warning_ buried between the words. Uo never minced words for very long, but the way she spoke made Rika think that this had been something she'd been dwelling on for a while.

"Kyo and I are friends." Rika laughed it off with a wave of her hand, glancing at Uo from the corner of her eye. She looked worried. "That's all."

"You sure about that? He seems real fond of you these days."

"I'm sure. There's nothing romantic between us Uo. Even if there was anything on my side, it's kind of blatant he has feelings for Tohru right? I'm not about to step into that mess of repression." Uo snorted at the face Rika pulled as she spoke.

"You're right about that. He and Yuki both." Rika had seen it. The two teens fawned over their friend. Found it impossible to deny her anything when she asked. It had been too long since Rika had been able to have such a _normal_ conversation and navigating it put her at ease, even if the topic was a little left of field. "I don't mean to be an inquisitor about it all y'know. It's just - Kyo's dad shows up as your adult for the conference, and you two have been spending so much time here. Hana thought that your waves had changed towards one another."

Rika's laugh was louder this time, head shaking.

"They've changed because we're friends. Kyo - for all his temper - he's actually a pretty sweet guy when he wants to be. He's the reason Kazuma filled in for me too. I think they were both just trying to be nice."

Uo scoffed. Adopting a pensive expression.

"Hanajima and I thought you'd get the doctor to fill in. He's a cute one." Rika flushed, thinking of how stupid she'd been around Hatori the last couple months. Imagining him standing as a _parent_ felt wrong. Enough so that she gave a small shudder as that particular scenario played itself out in her mind.

"I couldn't have asked him," Her hands flapped frantically, "I mean, he'd probably have said yes but could you imagine? All the girls fawning over him again like the last day he picked up Momiji and Haru - oh - even just him talking about my career options with me. It'd be like – I don't know -"

It wasn't so much _speaking_ about her career with him that unnerved her, but the role Hatori might have had to play as the _adult_. He was more mature than Shigure, that much was obvious. He'd also been looking after her mental and physical health since the accident as best he could but to have him fulfil a _parental_ role? Rika couldn't have explained _why_ but it sat wrong in her gut. As though there was something else she had to consider that she didn't quite know yet.

"Sounds like you just don't want to share the pretty doctor Ri-Ri." Rika swung the soft part of her bag at the other blonde, eliciting laughter.

"Don't say such idiotic things. And don't call me _Ri-Ri_."

"Oh, I see it now." Rika stopped to wait for Uo who had stalled a step earlier.

"See what now?"

"You and Kyon-Kyon. You're like _siblings_." Rika huffed.

"We are not!"

"Yes! Yes, you are!" Uo lifted a hand, counting off points against her fingertips. "The martial arts. The hot tempers. Blind about love. Oh, and of course, solving problems with violence. Honestly if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was like you two grew up together." Rika had turned to stalk off, unsure why being equated to Kyo felt so offensive in light of the fact she'd just claimed how sweet he was but her steps faltered. She turned.

"We didn't though." _Right? _And wait – _blind about love_?! What the hell was that.

"Don't be dumb. I know you didn't." Uo slung her arm over Rika's shoulder, the gesture warm and forcing the girl to stumble. "Look, I'm glad he's being good to you. It seems to be helping. Just, Tohru, she's too kind for her own good sometimes right?"

"And if she thought I had feelings for Kyo, she'd never dare do anything to interfere in them." A nod from Uo. Rika smiled. Hooked her arm across Uo's waist. "I promise. There's nothing like that between Kyo and I. Honestly, I think that he and Tohru would make a great couple. They just need time to figure it out right."

"Absolutely." They walked together, arms linked and silence companionable until Uo piped up again. "And you - you're okay right? The Sohma's are being good to you?"

Rika inclined her head. Felt her throat tighten. She was improving but that didn't necessarily unlock the wealth of the emotions she was carrying. That kind of thing was going to take time. Hatori had echoed that sentiment for a while now.

"I'm okay. All of them have been so generous. I feel like I need to thank someone that I was lucky enough to meet them before..." Her voice trailed and she pushed through it. Offered her friend a half smile. "I'm okay. Someday, I might even be better than that."

"Alright." Uo accepted her answer, a butt of her head against Rika's about as dangerously sentimental as the pair dared to get. "For today though, let's go get some yakitori. I bet Torhu would love some too."

Rika agreed and so the pair walked on, arm in arm. Reaping small comforts from their honesty.

* * *

Despite attempts to wave off Uo's accusations of her and Kyo's budding friendship, Rika did have to admit that there was something _off_ about everything. Occasionally, when she entered a room, Hatori and Shigure stopped speaking. Even Ayame too when he happened to visit and from what Yuki claimed, the silver haired man _never_ knew when to shut the hell up. There were movements that felt too familiar, slivers of memories that seemed to be fighting to be remembered, even when she had no clue where such things were coming from.

Asking the others seemed to be a fruitless task, and the last week or so Hatori's visits dwindled down to almost nothing. Shigure implied it was something to do with their Family Head being unwell, a man Tohru had once described to her as _unusual_. What exactly that meant, Rika couldn't figure out. All she knew was that she hadn't yet had a chance to apologise to Hatori privately for all that she'd put him through. An impossible feat when the man didn't dare visit, and when he _did_ – it was while she and the others were at school.

It was selfish, she knew, to rely on him in any capacity beyond his role as a doctor. Except, in the middle of everything else, he'd also become a friend. A confidant. Someone she could speak frankly to. That she could turn over her anxieties to and know they were in safe hands. She'd needed that safety net less since returning to training, but there'd been conversations in there too. Not all of them necessarily important or life changing but comforting. Supportive. He'd told her about his practice. Parts of his school life. She had shared facets of the person she'd been in Okinawa.

To have his visits dwindle down to perfunctory greetings or passing ships - it _stung_.

It was with that driving force behind her that Rika excused herself from dinner that night, stating that she had some personal stuff to take care of. Finding the Sohma Estate wasn't difficult but walking the long drive towards the main house set her heart alight. Racing. Outside one house in particular she stopped, studying the external features. Her hand ran along the fencing, seeking something. At one spot, she found what she'd suspected. A loose panel, nails missing from its top left corner.

_How had she known that_?

Rika liked to believe she wasn't stupid. Her grades had always been decent. Logic and history told her there was no way she knew anything to do with this place and yet…

_And yet_…

The frenetic driving force to arrive at Hatori's door had dwindled in the face of something more mysterious, and when she reached the main door of the inner estate, Rika found herself drawn around the exterior rather of knocking. Allowing her gut to guide her brought her to a wall half obscured by some bushes. Behind those, _a gap_.

She'd known that would be there too.

A flash of a memory rose up, the sensation of skinned knees and scuffed palms. Even if the place _seemed_ new to her, it was riddled with history. Children's laughter. Warm hands clasped together. Stealing in through the gap, she thought she could hear voices.

_Ri-Ri_,_ come play…_

_Rika, we have to be quick…_

_Rika, where are we going?_

Clutching her head, the young woman leaned into the stonework as she reached the inner compound. Breathing hard, a louder and more present voice caught her attention. Momiji. Just beyond the hedge. Which, from what she'd heard from the various Sohma's, meant the neighbouring house was Hatori's.

Instead of moving to either home, she found herself frozen. Indecisive. There was some tangled thread all wrapped up in this place and it was one that held immense significance to her. The rapid rush of her heart told her that. Embroiled below excitement was something else.

_Fear_.

Staggering deeper into the compound, Rika tried to place any of it into a space that made sense. Hands pressing against her chest, she thought her heart might drum its way right out through her ribs. A wild animal trapped in a cage, it snarled. Roared. Screamed its discomfort. What was it about this place? What was it trying to tell her?

Caught up in the web of it all, she didn't hear a sliding door open near her hiding spot.

"Well - the prodigal child returns" Rika's head snapped up to meet dark eyes. An odd smile. Her fingers were still splayed against her chest. Head aching.

"Don't just stand there girl. Come in."

A hand was stretched out towards her. She hesitated a beat and then –

She reached out. Claimed it.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: A little warning as a swear word slipped into this one. Sometimes what's written in a draft is just too damn good to change in the final product, and that's what happened here.

* * *

"Tori, I messed up -," Hatori's sigh was deeply felt, a hand reaching out to rest against the wall.

"Given experience Shigure, I'm going to need you to be more specific."

"You're so _cruel_ Tori~" He hated that he could hear the dramatics rising in Shigure's voice along with the matching expression. He dragged his nails over the timber on the picture frame over his phone, quietly waiting for Shigure to get to his point. That way, he might not say something _too_ callous.

"Well, obviously the kids have their Kyoto trip this week coming right?"

Hatori mumbled an acknowledgement.

"And Rika can't go due to her interview."

There was a tangled knot of coincidences beginning to form in his mind, Hatori rubbing at his jaw. His patience was wearing too thin to deal with these antics, particularly when Akito was running another damn fever. Adding to that, he'd been carefully disentangling himself from Rika so that he wouldn't trigger any unwelcome memories and growing more on edge by the day. As much as he might deny it, she had a soothing effect on him. Without her, he'd felt - _detached. _

"I know that. Now what have you messed up?"

"Well, I'd originally assumed that the house would be empty and offered to host a few writer friends for a retreat." Oh, he _had_ to be kidding, "And well, as much as I adore having Rika here I feel some of the men I'm friendly with might be simply too tempted by her presence. Such a delectable thing she is."

The pen he'd picked up to occupy his agitated hands snapped.

"She can stay with me."

It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, Hatori not even sure how the logistics could work. She had stayed in his home as a child of course, but always as a patient. With Akito's knowledge. Her being present would mean asking the maids to take a few days to deal with other matters. Ensuring she didn't cross paths with Akito. Finding a place for her to stay that she would be comfortable with.

Somehow, all those options were infinitely greater than abandoning her to Shigure's sleazy friends.

"Oh Hatori, you _are_ a lifesaver. I'll send her over once we've seen off the others!"

"Shigure -"

"Yes _Tori?"_

"You're full of shit."

With that, he hung up.

* * *

Rika's head had been reeling for days.

There had been too much to take in. Not enough. All of it felt like some big farcical joke designed to torment her.

Her visit to the Sohma Estate hadn't brought with it the apology she'd wished to offer Hatori, instead opening up a can of worms so large that she couldn't wrap her mind around any of it. She'd stolen out of the house as surreptitiously as she'd slipped in, a knock at the door of the room she'd been sitting in the signal that their time was up. It had been too short. Too lacking in information.

Still, there was no denying the fact that Ren Sohma had been the first person to offer her up even a modicum of truth since she'd arrived back in Tokyo. That all the Sohma's had been in on it. It made her wonder if Tohru had known of the deception. If she'd been part of some ploy to make Rika feel foolish and out of her depth.

_No_.

That couldn't be it.

Smarting, Rika had been attempting to break down the knowledge that had been shared with her. She, _Rika Hayashi_, was in fact a Sohma. Had grown up in the main estate once upon a time.

_The prodigal daughter_.

Ren had called her that with the hint of malicious intent playing around her mouth and still Rika had been been hooked on every damn word. The recounting of the zodiac tale and its gods. How the head of the family, Ren's son, believed himself to be some benevolent and powerful being whose very existence was to control the surrounding zodiac.

A family curse.

It had been told to her in whispers. Behind Ren's hand. As though it was all some elaborate psychosis that the family suffered. They followed Akito's orders. Would bend to his will. She too, during her youth, had played the dutiful servant.

Akito had grown jealous of her. That was what Ren said.

Rika had held the zodiac members in some kind of thrall. They'd begun to split their time between both Akito and her. Eventually, Akito, the true heir to the family - had had enough. Ordered Rika's memories to be stripped from her. Her family banished.

It felt too much like a terrible soap opera to be true.

Nevertheless, there were aspects of it that couldn't be denied. How quickly the Sohma's had taken her in after her father's death. The way Hatori fretted and bowed to her requests. Maybe _that_ was why he'd tried to place distance between them? Some part of this strange idea of a curse was that he couldn't deny her. Was it why Kyo had offered her friendship. Family? Were the relationships she'd been building with the Sohma's all built on some sense of _duty_? If that was the case, how could she trust that any of it was _real_? As absurd as the idea of a curse was, the possibility that her presence took away someone's free will was a million times worse.

She felt sick to her stomach and there was no one she could speak to about it without bubbling up like a geyser. The Sohma's had all been keeping this secret from her. Uo and Hana weren't part of it. _Tohru…_ She didn't know.

On top of all that, there was also her interview with Detective Ito coming up. While the rest of the class were headed to Kyoto for their school trip - Rika would be staying in Tokyo to dredge up whatever memories she had of the crash. Even now, that day eluded her. The doctors said it was trauma. Rika had to wonder.

Hatori. _Hatori_. He was the one in charge of memory removals. Had that been why he'd hung so close? To stop his hard work from unravelling. Rika's hand formed a fist, crumbling the papers she'd been reading before her mind began wandering. How was any of this supposed to make sense? What was she meant to _do_? What _could_ she do?

A knock at her door pulled her attention away from the homework she'd meant to be working on, Yuki lingering below the lintel with a strange expression on his face.

"Miss Hayashi, have you a moment?" She nodded, shoving away the books from her. Left enough space for Yuki to sit. He stepped forward but didn't take the hint, instead leaning his weight against her wall.

"What is it?"

"I won't take up too much of your time. I believe that you're staying at the main house next week while we're in Kyoto?" She told him that was true. Whether she was going to survive it or not was the real question. "Hatori - he - he's a very good doctor. He cares a lot for people. I know he's spent a lot of time worrying about you too but…"

Rika's heart picked up an unsteady beat, her eyes narrowing.

"_But_?"

"Just don't trust him too much okay? I can't say why, but please -," He looked away and Rika thought he seemed bothered. Torn. "If they try to make you meet our family head and you don't wish to do it. Just don't. Okay?"

His warning was decidedly cryptic. Not to mention utterly useless. Ren had already sown the seeds of a mystery to be solved and Rika was too far in _not_ to follow the leads given to her. Even if it put her face to face with the man who had apparently changed the entire course of her life. _Especially_ if it allowed her to figure out just how much truth was in Ren's tale.

Rika stood up, reaching out to Yuki. Dropped a hand onto his shoulder.

"Thank you." She meant it. In a small way, this solidified the doubt she held in her mind. Hatori wasn't her ally. He was a threat. How she managed that would be the challenge.

Yuki smiled, placed a hand over hers.

"I'm sure Miss Honda and the others will miss you greatly next week. I'm very sorry you can't attend with us." Rika shrugged it off. While missing the trip had bothered her initially, now it gave her an entire week to explore the Sohma family and unearth the truth. Still, she couldn't _say_ as much. So she adopted a sad smile. Told Yuki to go have fun. _Hugged him_.

He seemed surprised by the action, but less so than she was.

Ren, evidently, had lied about one thing.

That so called curse, it didn't trigger. Yuki remained a boy. Rika remained uncertain. He excused himself quickly after she released him and the fair-haired girl watched him go with her arms crossed.

_Someone_ was lying.

It was now a matter of her figuring out _who_.

* * *

Hatori's home was a simple two-story affair, the ground floor housing what appeared to be his clinic, a living room come office, kitchen, and guest room. Rika hadn't been entirely certain how to act the first few two days. The revelations from Ren had made her wary of the man and he too seemed to be uncertain of her.

Though she didn't quite believe in the curse Ren had told her of, sitting almost firmly in the _I'll believe it when I see it_ category, Rika still found herself framing questions with care. If there was some _obligation_ towards her, then she would have to do her best to circumvent it by not demanding things.

The result was polite and stilted conversations. Rika trying to make herself as unobstructive to Hatori's daily life as possible. He'd granted her a key to come and go from Kazuma's dojo or to get groceries, asking her to try to restrict her movements to the early or late hours of the day and avoid the other denizens of the central estate.

By the end of the second day she thought she'd figured it out.

He was _nervous_.

She wasn't sure how she could tell, Hatori usually so stoic. Since she'd met the man he had always been direct. Telling her when she was being foolish. When she needed to open up to someone. Two days sharing meals, quiet time and the awkward shuffle over who got to the bath first; Rika's anger and distrust was fading against the weight of her curiosity. She'd started watching him to try answer questions about his intentions. Searching for the malicious undercurrent to his actions. The nastiness. The part of him that was watching her back to decide when he was going to strike and tug away all her history once more. When she didn't find it, a replacement emotion followed.

She _enjoyed_ watching him when he didn't realise she was. How he tapped his pen against his desk in the beat to whatever music was in his head (most often the songs she herself had hummed as she'd studied). The distracted way he gazed at the garden outside when birds came down to wash themselves in the little standing bath. The little routines. All of his writing utensils were neatly stacked on his right. His cup of tea, sencha, which he inevitably strained too long until it became bitter if Rika didn't take charge of the process. The neat rows of food in his refrigerator and the methodical way he would prepare dinner. How his eyes snagged against the photograph on his desk when he forgot she was in the room.

She wanted to ask who the woman was. Why she wasn't here _now_. What might she have said about him housing a high school girl for a week, even if said girl was already at the cusp of adulthood? Rika's hand stalled over the page of notes she was transcribing as she registered the date for the first time. Eyes wide. It was already _October_?

"Is your homework really that difficult?" Hatori had returned without her hearing, catching Rika in the midst of her stricken expression. She shook her head.

"N - no," A hesitation, "That's not it."

He crouched beside her; head angled to one side with was concern. Rika felt her cheeks begin to heat. Being scrutinized by Hatori unnerved her. Especially now.

"What is it then," He reached out before she could stop him, pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, "Are you running a fever? Should I call Detective Ito and cancel for tomorrow?"

"No! You don't need to do that." She shoved his hand away. "I'm fine really. I just -,"

It was mortifying. Also, ridiculous. There'd been so much going on. She'd been in hospital, then recovering. Her father's funeral had taken place. School had been demanding, from trying to figure out her future career prospects to making sure she was on top of all her grades.

"I forgot about my birthday." Hatori blinked. Turned his head away and stood upright. She had been twenty for two whole months now. Her birthday had been the end of July and she had been holed up in a bed, miserable, when it had happened. She wondered if the rest had forgotten it too. _No_. Her birthday - that had been the night Kyo had made his promise to her. She wanted to laugh. He _did_ know her. Another dawning realisation was fixed to that knowledge and matching it alongside the story Kyo had told her of his old friend made her feel ill. Her face disappeared behind her hands.

"Alright, up." Hatori had a hand stretched out to her, his reading glasses removed and stowed into his shirt pocket, "Tomorrow's going to be a long day as it is so how about we go get some dinner?"

"You don't have to do that."

"It's not a request Rika. I'm _insisting_. Up. Let's go." She sighed. Acquiesced.

He gave her time to go put on suitable clothing and when she'd returned, he had changed into a fresh suit. Their drive was in silence, Rika grappling with her uncertainty. A manipulative, lying person wouldn't just drop all their evening plans to take some girl to dinner. She hadn't forced his hand either. It had been _his_ request.

Small talk filled the spaces between his house and the restaurant, Hatori tolerating the way she dodged anything intensive. How Rika picked at her noodles.

Hatori tapping his chopsticks against her bowl was the first indication of his patience dwindling.

"You think remarkably loudly, did you know?" She looked up, startled.

"Sorry."

"You don't need to apologise. It's just an observation." His smile was clipped. Careful. He was debating what he was going to say next, she could tell by the flickering glance he threw towards the window. Back to her. The purse of his lips. Their opening. She lifted an eyebrow. It said _spit it out_. He flashed her a retaliation that said _you first_. "What's on your mind then? Something is bothering you." He paused, then clarified. "More than the birthday thing."

It was baffling, even now, how easily he managed to pinpoint her moods. As though he'd known her in her youth. Rika almost laughed at the thought, pressing her fingertips to her forehead. He _had_ known her. Just why hadn't he bothered to tell her that? Why was he lying to her? Figuring what the hell, she leaned back in her seat. Met his eyes.

Deciphering how she felt about Hatori was difficult. She was grateful to him for the time he'd spent with her, lurking at her bedside. The patience he offered. Guidance. A weighted structure she had washed over time and again in the midst of her grief. That didn't mean she wasn't wary of him, thanks to Yuki's warning. Angry too, because if Ren's story was to be believed, he had taken away _years_ of her life. Buried deeper again was something else. Something still growing and taking shape that hadn't yet given her a hint of what it was formed of.

"I'm a Sohma aren't I?" His chopsticks clattered to the table in alarm and Rika, cruelly, enjoyed the panic that filled his face. Only to have it snuffed out when he recovered. Quickly. He was too open to her to be adept at lying. He busied his hands with picking up the chopsticks, eating another mouthful of his dinner.

"What makes you believe that?"

"Your reaction for one." Her answer seemed to double the tension in his shoulders and Hatori glanced towards the other customers. As though this was the worst place possible for this discussion to be taking place. Which, in hindsight, it might have been. It was just too late to stop the landslide now. "It was my mom right? She was a Sohma. That's why I wasn't able to find any information when Kyo asked. Someone had made sure there was no trace of evidence left of that relationship."

"Rika -,"

"Don't," She pointed her own chopsticks at him, jaw tight, "_Please_ don't lie to me."

As soon as it was out of her mouth, she regretted it. That felt too close to an order. Walking the damn line was _hard_. She wasn't enjoying a single second of it.

"I promise," He reached out a hand and snagged hers, "I won't lie to you when you ask me." A double-bladed promise. Rika knew it. Hatori knew it. For some reason, it still softened the heat in her gut.

"So, I'm right? My mom was a Sohma?"

"Yes. She was."

"And all of you - all of you know me – _knew me_?"

"Yes."

Breathing hard through her nose, Rika knew what needed to be asked next. _Why_ she couldn't remember. What it was that had separated her from this family and ensured she'd never have come back until her father had thrown them both back into this orbit. That sent her mind skittering elsewhere and amber eyes looked up, wounded.

"My dad. Did he know?" There was a glimmer of a recollection. Photographs. A letter. _A fight_. It felt like a dream from eons ago, something too far out of reach to be tangible.

"He did." The wound expanded. "Only he wasn't aware that Kyo and Yuki were attending Kaibara or that you had reconnected with us." She could see the ripples of discontent in the lines of his face. He was being truthful. She trusted that. It was also hurting him to have to tell her this. Was that this damn curse too? Rika didn't know what to believe. An emotion was spiralling outwards from her chest, creeping its way through her limbs. Whether it was anger, humiliation, _hurt_ – it didn't seem to want to make itself known. Only that it existed. That it was there.

"Why?" Her soba sat forgotten in front of her. Throat tight. "Why don't I - why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"There are things -," Hatori's fingers drummed against the table agitatedly, "Things that are beyond my control. The reasons for your leaving, do you recall them?"

She shook her head. If she wasn't mistaken what manifested in his eyes was relief. It certainly revealed itself as his hand stilled. Silenced.

"Rika I'm promising you honesty, but some truths need time before they can be shared. There are bigger things than you and I. Dangers of us diving into this knowledge too soon. Do you believe me?"

She swallowed. Thought it over. This wasn't meant to be how she did this. She was to find her way to the answers herself. Confront all of them with it. Instead, he was asking for patience. Time to put affairs in the right order. He was snuffing out the inferno in her chest and she wanted to chuck the bowl of soba at him in retaliation. His hand had found hers again and Rika turned her hand upwards so they were palm to palm. She wanted to feel if the skin was damp. If he trembled. She found neither symptom. The flames quietened.

"If I demand something of you…" She began, "Do you have to agree to it?" It felt too foolish to ask about the _curse _outright. The very idea of such a thing existing. Of unbreakable bonds and unbridled love. Everything came with a cost. _Everything. _

Hatori laughed, seemingly shocked by the turn in conversation.

"What makes you believe that?" He removed his hand and the air over her skin felt chilled in its wake.

"Nothing," Her cheeks flushed and she looked away from him. "But yes, I do believe you."

"And do you trust that when the time is right, I'll help you remember all of this?" Instinct screamed no. That she wanted her memories back _now_. She wanted to know what the real truth of the matter was. To know where her role had been. _What_ she had been to these people. Family alone didn't make sense. Neither did Ren's ridiculous curse theory.

_But..._

Hatori's gaze was unwavering. Open. It made her heart quicken. He was asking her for time. Trust. Maturity. No matter what instinct screamed, there was something stronger wrought in the look they shared in that moment.

_Why_ did her heart quicken?

"I do."


	17. Chapter 17

They'd been home a few hours since the interview and somewhere over the course of the evening, Hatori had turned on the kotatsu. Grabbed a book. Rika was beginning to think this was a little holiday for him. A hard-won break from his regular duties. She, meanwhile, worn from the stress of the interview and the expectations of the Detective - had sprawled out on the mat. Their talk the previous night had thawed some of the awkwardness between them; Not all of it, but enough. Somewhere in the chill and her sleep, she'd sought a pillow. Found Hatori's lap. When she woke, he was still buried in his book. A soft rise and fall of his breathing the only sound interspersed with the occasional turn of a page.

Rika kept her eyes closed. Recollecting a time when she'd slept like this in her mother's lap. When she had slept like this against someone else. She had tucked her palms against her body and Hatori had pulled the edge of the blanket to envelope her. For some reason, all of it together made her feel overheated. Flushed.

All the Sohma's. Tohru and Uo and Hana. They'd been her family the last few months (maybe longer). Before that, her father and mother. Except she could hardly recollect a time when they _felt_ like a family. Her dad always working. Mother trying to keep Rika afloat. Herself afloat. The _illusion_ afloat. She had been staying at this house all of three days and it was the most like _home_ that she could recollect in years and _two of those _had been riddled with awkward sidestepping. Was the feeling of home to do with Hatori? Her past? The heated sensation filling up her chest was unfathomable. Maybe it was just embarrassment she was feeling for having sought him out in her sleep. For using him as a cushion to rest her head. Yet another thing to apologise for.

"I can hear you thinking again." His voice had her eyes snapping open. Rika flushed.

"I think that kind of undermines the whole concept of thinking Hatori." She commented dryly.

"Oh, it does, but as I said - you're exceptionally loud when you're thinking."

"Have you ever been in love?" She felt him freeze below her, the comfortable headrest his legs had created becoming more solid and unwelcoming. Rika refused to wave off her question, as much as it had surprised her as it emerged from her mouth. She expected some kind of diversion. Instead, the surprise was rolled back in her direction.

"Once. Why?"

"How did it feel?" His hands had stilled against the book he was reading, a rustle indicating as he earmarked the page he was on and put the novel aside. It felt silly to her, allowing such juvenile questions to swim to the surface but she'd been trying to comprehend facets of her parents' relationship that seemed foreign to her even now.

Hatori shifted and Rika saw the movement for what it was. _Discomfort._ She sat upright, back leaning against the tabletop so that she could see him more clearly. Shaking off the blanket and its heat.

"It was -," He was scrambling for words and Rika reached out to place a hand against his knee. Withdrew it just as quickly. There were lines she was struggling to make sense of and where Dr. Sohma ended and Hatori began was one that seemed to get fuzzier the closer she got.

"It's okay. You don't have to -"

"No, no just be patient. I want to tell you about it."

It came in fits and starts, the tale of Hatori's first love. The gentle imaginative nature of the woman he'd fallen for and how she'd accepted each part of him at face value. There'd been no seeking betterment or change because that part came naturally once they were together. Both of them growing, becoming a little bit smarter. More certain. Rika counted the smiles that were slotted between his words, how they didn't quite reach his eyes. Spending time here had been a lesson in reading someone stoic and careful. Disconnected, even. Whether it was time or experience affecting them, a part of her was starting to recognise that he was softening towards her.

Why else would he let her sleep against his lap like he did?

"What happened?" She asked once he'd trailed off.

"We fell apart. There was an accident -,"

"Your eye?" He seemed shocked by that, a hand lifting to the left side of his face in a protective manner. She didn't know where that surety had come from, but it made sense once she'd spoken it aloud. How he kept her on his right-hand side. The way his hair was slightly longer on the left. Truthfully, she'd made a guess based on minor evidence but the way he reacted told her she was right. When his surprise passed, Hatori nodded.

"Yes, my eye." His tongue darted out to wet his lips and Rika was entranced by the humanity of it. Yuki had warned her not to grow too comfortable in Hatori's presence, but part of her wondered if someone ought to have warned Hatori not to grow comfortable in _hers_. Even when he kept his words concise and clinical, she could detect the emotion below it. Elation that he'd ever fallen in love like he had. Immense sadness that it hadn't lasted. There was more too, things that she couldn't quite figure out, an unspoken hint that she didn't understand.

"It was hard to find our way back to one another after that, so we went our separate ways. It's been a few years since then."

"Do you still love her?"

"I think I always will, but there's a line between loving and being in love." Hatori studied her as he spoke, Rika trying to pretend she couldn't see it. The entire conversation reeked of an intimacy she wasn't yet equipped to handle, not least when one of the people involved was meant to be her physician. Even if her living for a few days in his house was hardly proof of that being a wholly professional relationship anymore. Since the accident in particular, they'd wandered from the path of doctor-patient and into something unknown. Less formal. "Some people never quite learn that but I think you can still love someone without it being the formative part of your relationship."

Rika rested an elbow on the table, thinking again.

"I had someone like that."

"_Oh_?" She thought his surprise a little cruel but let it pass. It wouldn't do to start getting irritated about every little way that Hatori processed her words, particularly when _she'd_ been the one to initiate the conversation.

"When I was a kid." He was feigning disinterest, his shoulders tight and face angled away from her but Rika could tell he was waiting for something in her words. She wasn't entirely sure _what_. Biting down on her lip, she half recollected how Kyo had sounded when he'd shared the reasons for his own rude detachment when they'd first met. "I don't remember it well. Fragments. I just feel it. Like there was someone there that I loved more than I could ever describe and then one day -" _it was gone_.

It had to be something she remembered incorrectly because love like that didn't just _vanish_. It couldn't do. Feelings could be fickle and strange but they didn't fade at the snap of one's fingers. They needed time to be processed and accepted. Even if Ren's insistence on Hatori's memory wiping abilities were true, something like that could hardly take away _love_. Could it? Rika lifted her hand, rubbing at her forehead agitatedly and feeling moisture building under the touch. Another memory was creeping forward, flashes of words on a page. It made her stomach roil with discomfort. Skin flush.

"Maybe it's got something to do with why my mom thought I couldn't love right." The admission surprised them both and Hatori sat forward, brow furrowed. As though fighting an instinct his hand reached for her, paused. Retreated.

"You mother didn't believe that." She wanted to snap at him. Ask how the hell he could know a damn thing about her mother. Even if she _had_ been a Sohma once upon a time. Instead she shook her head and turned away. Shutting off the opening that had inched wider between them.

"She wrote it somewhere." Rika laughed to break the tension, sound seeming foreign to her ears. Sweat had beaded over her skin, mind once again bickering with body. Ever since the crash, it had been happening more and more. "Maybe I'm just going mad. I think I need to lie down." The harder she fought to recall where those words had come from, the worse she felt. She wondered if part of it was due to the interview that morning with Detective Ito, from trying to dig up everything related to that day.

An everything that had amounted to nothing.

She was caught off guard by the press of Hatori's hand to her forehead. Her neck.

"You're running a fever. Lie down. I'm going to get some supplies." She bowed against the floor, fighting off the nausea creeping into her gut. By the time Hatori returned, she had fainted.

* * *

Two more days passed relatively quietly, Rika packed off to bed for the bulk of it. Hatori had determined she'd picked up a bad cold, possibly due to the added stress of the interview and the growing awareness of her involvement with the Sohma's. While the idea of being a bedridden houseguest warred against her sensibilities, she had to admit that there was something nice in being looked after by Hatori too.

Particularly when there was no life or death consequences this time.

Just a woman with a fever, and a doctor in his element. He'd taken to cooking for her, most of it variations of rice porridge but she was surprised to find he was _good_ at it. Even without Yuki's garden of fresh vegetables to rely on.

He'd stuck his head in the door to tell her that he was going to the grocery store for a bit, leaving her some books beside the futon for her. Most of them were, rather unfortunately, textbooks. One in particular caught her attention and she turned it over in her hands. It was a science textbook, years out of date for the current curriculum. Inside she found Hatori's initials. Added comments by Shigure and Ayame. Much of them inappropriate.

Her thumb caught on one note, a roughly scribbled hand that she vaguely recognised as Hatori's. It must have been from when he was still young.

_Find out what this means for her._

Her.

_Who was her_?

Shaking her head, she instead picked up a different book. Something from Hatori's university days about various case studies. Surprisingly, she was quickly enthralled in the pages. Most of it was somewhat disturbing and distressing, but she liked the clinical straightforwardness of the contents. How it was able to find answers for almost anything. A gear had been turning itself slowly in her mind and she turned to look at the other books he'd left her with a critical eye. Almost all of them were medical based to some extent. Or science. She could smell an agenda but for the life of her she wasn't certain if he wanted a companion to understand his work or it was rooted in something else.

A heavy knocking of the front door had her looking up in confusion, unsure what to do. Padding out into the hallway, Rika pulled her robe tighter.

"Hatori! _Hatori_." The voice sounded young, "I know you said you're unavailable this week but my mom has gone and done something stupid again. We need you!"

"I don't think he's home." Another voice. Female this time. Just as young. Softer spoken.

Rika lingered in the hallway, fighting against Hatori's orders and the need to not leave two kids on the porch when a doctor was required. The latter won out.

She turned the lock, intending to open the door and tell the kids Hatori wasn't there. That she'd send him straight over once he returned.

Instead the reveal of the two faces was a knife to the chest. There was a long quiet beat. Shock rose like a bubble, enveloping the trio. Cutting out the cold. Distractions. Noise. It beat with its own tension, thrumming through Rika's body with the urgency of a siren's call. The boy recovered quickest, hand rising to jab a finger at her chest.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?!" Rika backed away under his intensity, hands rising defensively.

"I - _I_ -," Her eyes kept moving to the girl. Those eyes. That hair. She knew them. _She knew them_. The realisation wasn't an old familiar comfort like Kazuma. It was sharp. Sudden. _Painful_.

"Are you just going to gape at us or are you going to bother explaining yourself? Where've you been the last six years? On _holiday_? Off enjoying yourself while we were here picking up the mess _you_ made? Are you that kind of adult now, one who lets kids deal with stuff they're not meant to?!" The boy hardly paused for breath, his tirade pulling her under even as she scrambled against it. She had no answer. Rika was out of her depth. The young girl had advanced too, head tilted. Eyes wide.

"Big sister?"

That undid her, Rika's head exploding with pain. Chest engulfed in flames. A voice was echoing in her ears, blocking out any further words from the kids.

"_Your position means nothing in this family. You had best remember that."_

"_Yes Akito." _

"_Some believe you can be put to use, however. The new tiger has been born. You will take her as your charge. Do you understand?"_

"_Yes."_

"_You will care for her. Play with her. Protect her secret. Her mother has asked for help and your mother wants a role for you. Maybe this way, you can make yourself useful. Undo some of the blight of your birth."_

"_Yes Akito." _

Her knees hit the step in the hallway, hands curled over her head. Akito. That name. She could hear the boy, _Hiro_ \- _his name is Hiro_, still speaking over her. Feel small hands closing over hers amid the cries of _big sister. _

_Kisa_.

It was _Kisa_.

Her Kisa.

Why did she know this? Why was her heart beating harder than it had in her entire life? Someone else had appeared, a cool hand curling against her neck. Pulling her body against theirs. She was weeping. She could feel it amidst the static. Her sobs. The ragged draws of her breath.

"Breathe Rika. Please. _Please_. _You're okay now." _

It was Hatori's voice. His hand on her neck. Around her waist.

"You're okay." He repeated it as a mantra. Forced it between her sobs. _Akito_. Why had that name filled her with such dread? _Yes Akito_. How often had she said it like that? Monotoned. Empty. _Fearful_.

More jarringly, why did _this_ feel so familiar? The fire that had curled itself around her ribcage. The way Hatori sat with her, so close she could feel the pulse of his blood against her skin. His voice blending into the sounds of her sharp inhales. Staggered exhales.

Slowly, _slowly_, Rika felt the screaming panic abate. Hatori's grip soften. His voice hoarse. Her knee throbbing where it had hit the edge of the step. Her skin felt too hot, even in that chilled hallway. Hatori still wore his coat. The front door was open, fogging their breaths. Kisa was sitting at her feet, hands curled into her lap. Spilled groceries were scattered in the doorway.

"I'm okay." She managed to get the words out past the knot in her throat. Hatori's hands retreated. Rika dropped her own from her head. It no longer felt like she had to hold it in place. Kisa leaned forward. Used her sleeve to dab at Rika's face.

"Big sister?"

"Kisa no -," Hatori's voice was stern but rattled. He sounded like he'd just experienced something terrible too. Maybe he had. Rika couldn't focus on that. Instead, her hands reached for the younger girl in front of her. Pulling her into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry." She whispered it into Kisa's hair, tears flowing again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Small arms curled around her waist. Hugged her back. Moisture seeped into her shoulder.

"I'm so _so_ sorry."

The trouble was, though she meant it right down to the fiber of her being - Rika didn't know what she was sorry _for_.

* * *

Kisa and Hiro had been sent away. Rika ordered back to bed. While Hatori had seen to Hiro's mother, Rika sat in bed and held her hands in front of her, staring at her palms. As soon as she'd hugged Kisa a feeling had risen up inside her. _Love_. There had been love there. Devotion. Fragmented memories came and shifted themselves into something recognisable.

A baby in her arms.

A pair sharing a futon.

Playing games. Dress up.

She cycled through them, trying to arrange a timeline. Logic. Find the edge of the happiness that was marked by fear, regret or anguish. It was too much and not enough.

Hatori came into the room and crouched down at the edge of her futon.

"Are you in pain?" Rika shook her head. Bowed forward so she could rest herself against his shoulder. He accepted the movement. Swept a hand over her hair to push it from her face. Let his hand linger over her head. His touch had been the thing to pull her back from the brink earlier and now it was a welcome comfort.

"What did you remember?"

"Pieces. Kisa. I remember her. Loving her. _Guilt_." Her hands moved to her chest, as if she could hold the feeling between her palms and show it to him. A palpable ugly thing. She'd been feeling it for years but never known _why_. Having an answer for it didn't help, nor had it softened the blow.

"She was dear to you." Hatori murmured, "Taking her away from you was the hardest thing." Even as he said it, she could tell it was a lie. That there was more to the story. His hand stilled against her head. "This is why I can't give you back your memories yet. Rika what you felt today, whatever that unlocked in you - it was -,"

"_Too much_." She finished the warning for him, knowing he was right. The pain had nearly shorn her head in two. What had followed hadn't been pleasant either. Curling Kisa against her chest had offered little by way of comfort. It was Hatori who'd talked her down. Who'd known what to do. He knew her. More than he'd let on.

When she'd agreed to his terms over dinner, Rika had believed him but doubt lingered.

How was he to know that it was dangerous for her to remember? Who was _he_ to make that decision when it was her past that had been taken away? The brush with Kisa and Hiro that evening had thrown things into sharp detail. Not knowing was better than that wrenching agony in her head. Finding a way to help her back towards her memories without the fear. The anguish. That _had_ to be worthwhile.

He dropped his chin on her head. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest.

_Yes Akito_.

How often had she said that? Had he said it too? Had others?

"Hatori…" He hummed an answer and Rika curled her hands into his shirt. "Will you stay nearby tonight?"

Instead of dwelling on the reasons why he could calm her down, Rika wanted to be enveloped in that sense of ease. To absorb it. She didn't know if it was his scent. His touch. Just the weight of his presence. She didn't even know when it had been born. After the accident? _Years ago_?

The man took his time in answering and Rika fretted that she had overstepped her mark. Opened her mouth to apologise. Before she could get the words out, he released her.

"I'll grab my seat. You lie down and try to sleep." Overcome with relief, Rika followed his instruction. Curled her body into itself. When Hatori returned, he set himself up at the head of the room. Close enough that her hand could rest against his suited calf as he read his book. She asked him to do so out loud. The sound of his breathing and voice filled her senses once her eyes closed. The subtle shifts as he found a comfortable spot reminding her of his company. Embraced in his presence, she was able to exhale. To sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

Rika's steps to Shigure's house were slow, body tired after a morning spent at the Dojo. Hatori climbed beside her, hands buried in his pockets and autumn scattering leaves under their feet.

"Hatori -," He looked up and she couldn't help it; She smiled, "I've been thinking about something."

"Rather quietly this time I notice." Her tongue poked out at his teasing, eyes rolling. He'd gotten more flippant with his teasing of her since Kisa and Hiro's visit, as though some old habit had been rediscovered. Rika much preferred it to the stoic nerves he'd had a week earlier. This was far more fun to be around.

"Keep it up and I'm tell Shigure you're just like him." His face darkened. She laughed.

"Your threats are far more substantial when I know you'll follow through with them."

"Who says I wouldn't follow through on that?"

"Logic. To tell that to Shigure you'd need to be able to keep a straight face. Something you would be incapable of doing when uttering such outright fallacy." Rika huffed in response, shifting the bag in her arms. Hatori reached out and claimed it, waving off her protest. A ghost of a smile was playing about his mouth and he directed her back to her original thoughts before she could bicker with him.. "What were you thinking about?"

"I'm going to find a different doctor." He missed a step, foot landing with a _clunk_ and Rika reached out to grab his arm. Panic rising. "Not because I think you're a bad doctor obviously! Just because I think that until we figure out a way to get my memories back you shouldn't have to worry about me on top of your other duties. Besides, I'm doing okay now right? My cold is gone and we don't have to worry about the investigation. Plus the doctors at the hospital gave me the all clear right?"

His silence was unnerving and so she rambled on, flooding her words with a terrible collection of _rights _and _okays?_. Hatori hadn't moved a step, Rika's fingers still hooked around his elbow.

"And you've got so much going on with the rest of the Sohma's. You need rest and if you keep calling over here because you're worried about me you never will -"

"Rika -,"

"Which isn't to say that I don't _want_ you to call over here. Of _course_ I want you to call here, it's just that I think I'd like it more as friends where we're concerned. Rather than -,"

His hand clamped over her mouth, faint smile having blossomed into laughter. He was shaking his head and Rika's voice faltered.

"I think that's a good idea." She relaxed. "I'll ring tomorrow with a list of potential physicians that are in the area for you to register with."

"Okay."

She meant it too, that she was okay. There was a myriad of things that had bothered her for the last few months, not all of them easy to handle but something over the last week had clicked into place. Her past was still elusive, Hatori drip feeding her knowledge when she pressed him on it. Sometimes offering her nuggets when she didn't expect it. Her father was still dead.

None of meant she didn't have things to live for.

She was getting stronger physically again. Unravelling some of the secrets that had been kept from her since she'd left Tokyo in the first place. There were even memories falling into place without Hatori's help. Like Kyo, for one. _Kisa_.

Memory was a fleeting, silly thing to battle. It supplied false narratives and skewed perspectives. What it couldn't do, was take away the feelings that went with those narratives. The love for Kisa that had nearly crippled her in Hatori's hallway. How her heart beat slower, _easier_, when the doctor was nearby. The sensation of Kyo's hand in hers, palm to palm.

"Are you coming?" Hatori had advanced up the steps ahead of her and Rika shrugged off her thoughts. Followed him.

Inside, the house seemed quiet, even when Rika called out. Glancing at Hatori over her shoulder she asked, "Shigure said they'd all be home, right?" He said he had. There was a strange little lift rising at the corner of his mouth and she eyed it suspiciously before pulling back the screen for the living room.

"SURPRISE!" The bulk of the noise came from Tohru and Shigure, the former pulling Rika into a bone crushing hug. Rika gaped emptily at the faces before her. Momiji and Haru. Kisa and Hiro. Kyo. Yuki. Even Kagura.

"You're home! We wanted to do something nice for you since you missed Kyoto and Hatori said you'd been sick all week too!" Tohru's hand had grabbed her arm, pulling her deeper into the room and its warmth. Rika's grip tightened on her friends, eyes prickling with moisture and gratitude. A final glance was thrown back towards Hatori and his cryptic smile before she was swallowed whole by noise and merriment.

* * *

"And they call _me_ the sly dog." Shigure had retreated back to his office space, the door adjoining the living room partly closed to drown out the noise of the various people crowding up his living room.

Hatori tucked a shoulder against the nearest wall, hands sitting loosely in his pockets.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Of _course _not. You only _happened_ to call everyone and tell them she was ill so that they'd all gather. If one of them breaks anything you can pay for it." Shigure's smile was smug. It made Hatori wary. As did the sudden exclamation from Kyo that drew his eyes back to the living room. Thankfully, it seemed to just be a reaction to losing a round of whatever card game they were all playing. "What brought the change of heart?"

"Now I _really_ don't know what you mean." He genuinely didn't. Shigure pressed a socked foot to the sliding door and shoved it so it shut altogether. Hatori didn't react but annoyance flared at losing his view of the adjacent room.

"Hatori, don't play coy with me. Before last week you were pushing the girl away. Now you're throwing her a party?"

"Did you remember her birthday?" Shigure froze. Brows furrowed.

"It's near Akito's but -," He exhaled sharply, the sound almost frustrated that he'd just made the connection. "We all forgot, didn't we?" The dog swore softly under his breath. "Was she upset?"

Hatori told him no. Which, as far as he could tell, was the truth. Rika had seemed more shocked by forgetting it herself. His attempt at taking her out for a meal had gone lopsided thanks to her adding the complicated matters of her past to the discussion, though why he'd expected anything less was beyond him. Rika had _always_ had a knack for bad timing, just as she had the ability to read him.

That surprised him most.

He had expected those things to fade. Perhaps they had, and it was now her growing awareness of her history that was bringing them back. Whatever it was, it both set him on edge and made his chest ache with something unknown. _How_ was he meant to give this all up again if Akito decided it had to be so?

_Could_ he give it up?

"And things with Kisa and Hiro?" Hatori rubbed at his eyes at the raised question.

"That wasn't meant to happen."

"And yet it did. Kisa seems mostly upset that Rika was hurting. Hiro…" Shigure didn't need to finish his sentence. Hiro was Hiro. No matter what explanation Hatori gave, Hiro would remain stubbornly angry at Rika. Although he'd been only seven when the incident happened, the consequences had been devastating. Two Sohma kids changing in front of a crowd of others was a disaster, particularly when he had been placed in charge of correcting the mess. For a time, Hatori himself was furious with Rika. That she'd taken off just because Kyo had called. That she'd then vanished without an apology.

That fury had died out when he'd found her in the cat's room. When fear had drowned out all else. Agony. _Grief_.

He knew better now than to hold the past against her, they all did - but some hurts needed time to heal. Particularly when Hiro's primary complaint was valid. Kisa had been crushed by Rika's departure. To face putting everyone through it again was difficult to swallow.

"I know you deny the concept of fate Hatori but -," Shigure's voice faltered against the look Hatori threw his way. His hands rose in a defensive gesture that turned into a loose hand waving motion. "Just think. Takuto brings her back. Kimiko kept all those mementos. She ends up at Kaibara with Kyo and Yuki. Befriends Tohru."

Hatori didn't want to consider it as _fate_. Accepting fate meant there had been a greater hand in everything that had brought them to this point. The memories he'd had to take from Rika. From Kana. His eye. Yuki. Akito. The more he attributed to _fate_, the less control he had over any of it. The less he could do to change his future. To make it _better_.

"Maybe we _need_ this. Tohru's already mended so much, maybe Rika can -,"

"Don't you _dare_ use her for your ends." Hatori snarled it, the effect tempered only by the need he had to keep his voice low. To stop the others from overhearing. A fruitless worry given the noise they were making outside, but a worry all the same. Shigure seemed to sense trouble. Exercised his ability to remain quiet for once in his life. For a fleeting moment anyways.

"I thought you wouldn't interfere with my plans."

"I said that before -," His hand lifted from his pocket. Gestured weakly towards the door.

"Before Rika came back." Hatori covered his mouth with his hand to hide his grimace. When had he become such an open book, he wondered. Shigure, naturally, had always been able to read him but this was another level altogether. It was the dog actively searching for an open wound, but then again - it was hardly as if he had to look that deeply. All the Sohma's carried their deep-rooted connectivity issues like a calling card. Some hid it better than others. Hatori had always liked to think he was one of those.

A person of ice. Frozen right to his centre. Not unfeeling or callous by nature but out of preservation. _Choice_. Except it seemed he couldn't even do that right.

Shrieking laughter and a _crash_ drew his attention to the living room, Hatori throwing back the door in time to see a plume of smoke. Beyond it, Rika's shell-shocked expression. He closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply.

Well, wasn't this _perfect?_

* * *

When Rika had disappeared midway through the evening set up, Kyo had had a suspicion about where she had gone. Slipping out of the house to the laundry porch, up the ladder to the roof, the teen was relieved to find that his instincts were right.

Working his way over the shingles he flung himself down beside her. The surface was painfully solid and cold beneath him.

"_Yo_-."

"Hi."

"What brought you up here?" Rika's mouth twitched, arms stretching outwards before settling across her knees. She looked like she was searching for words and he tapped her shoulder with his fist to put her out of her misery. "Don't be dumb. Anyone would need a break after those lunatics downstairs."

She laughed at the teasing, nudging him with her toe.

"Don't be an ass Kyo." There was no heat in her words, her expression distant. Conflicted. Though Hatori had moved to smooth things over after the dumb rabbit had pulled his little show of excitement, Rika had seemed to take it in her stride. To accept it. He'd known better. She was rattled. "I wanted to talk to you."

"About?" Before, those words might have sent him into a spiral, but now - knowing what he did - it simply had him stretching out and getting more comfortable. Rika was remembering things. Slowly but surely. She knew of the curse again. Hatori had explained that even with this knowledge it would take time for it all to fall into place. Some of it, she might never recover.

"That girl you told me about -" His relaxed aura crumbled as he remembered that story. How he'd told her in the hopes that it might trigger something. It hadn't but still he'd found a part of the girl he'd once known. "That was me wasn't it? _Us?"_

His breath vanished from his lungs for a beat and Kyo didn't dare move for fear it was a dream. Some foolish _terrible_ dream. Rika's voice was soft. Just about audible as she crouched her body low.

"I'm so sorry." He could hear the hitch in her breath but somehow couldn't catch his own to tell her not to be. To say that he'd already figured it out. Rika hadn't left out of cruelty. She hadn't vanished because she hated him and just not got around to telling him during their youth. She had made her choice to protect others. To protect herself. How could he _ever_ blame her for that?

"I don't remember why yet. I don't know if I _want_ to but Kyo," He reached for her, a hand closing over her wrist, "I will be sorry for leaving you like that for the rest of my life. Your friendship, it feels like the world to me now. Like - having a brother. I don't know what it might have been back then but I _know_ I must have loved you so much. I should have been here to tell you that. Every day. To remind you. That - this _curse_ -."

Kyo didn't wait for her to sit upright, using the leverage on her wrist to pull her roughly against his chest. She was sobbing. Body shaking. That damn rabbit. _Damn Akito_. Damn the whole damn lot of them. Leaving had made her soft. Pliable. It was hard to reconcile the girl from the woman sometimes, but it was most difficult when she was reduced to tears like this.

"Shut up alright? You don't gotta blubber over every little thing from back then." She nodded against his chest and he basked in the embrace a long minute. Thought of how he had longed for years for an embrace like this from his mother. From anyone. Kagura didn't count given half the time she coupled her hugs with trying to either eviscerate or decapitate him.

He felt the changing tension in her body before she moved and she used the edges of her sleeve to dry her face. If he had been Hatori, he'd have had a handkerchief. Maybe that damn rat would've had too. All Kyo could do was open his arm and let her lean against him. Stare at the stars instead of admitting that his own eyes were too bright. Vision too clouded. A few minutes passed before she spoke again, her fingers tracing spirals into his thigh.

"Can you - would you tell me what it was like then? With us?" How badly he had wanted to remind her of them. Of all the adventures they'd had. Of her companionship given without question or artifice. So, for once, he indulged himself. He told her of their first meeting when they were barely more than toddlers and how she'd pick him up and carry him home when it rained and he transformed. Of how she did her best to come visit every week, even after his mother had cut him off from the rest of the world after Kagura. He told her of their fights in the dojo after his mom died, with an added embellishment of him winning more than she ever did. A point at which she'd scoffed at him. He reminded her of them lying side by side and top to toe, laughing over Kazuma's terrible cooking skills. Kimiko's latest passion projects. Reading manga and bemoaning the terrible narrative points. Dissecting out their latest training sessions.

He kept to himself the long absences after she'd turned seven and Akira had died. How she'd grown distant and preoccupied. The mottled bruises on her skin when she'd show up to train again. The long stretches of quiet that marked the divide between good weeks and bad.

Some things Kyo didn't have the heart, strength or bravery to tell. The reason she had been able to learn origami for one. How she'd let him down when he'd told her he was going to marry her someday.

He'd told her until her tears were nothing but a distant memory and Tohru had come looking for them to eat dinner. Grinned as she'd put on her airs at the table, chattering away as though nothing was wrong. As though every day she saw boys turn into rabbits and had long lost friends recount their past. When he closed his eyes that night, he saw their formative years behind the lids. Felt the grip of history on his skin. When he slept, he dreamed of her.

/

"_Ri?" They'd been training all day, the fresh air and pride leaving Kyo energised even as his friend seemed to be barely keeping her eyes open. They'd been hustled off to their beds by Kazuma when the girl had nearly dropped her face into her miso but even knowing that Kyo's form was frenetic with unspent energy. _

"_Uh-huh?"_

_He turned to look at her. Blonde hair curled around her cheeks. The heavy weight of her eyes as she fought to meet his gaze. _

"_Someday, I reckon we should get married." It was a foolish whim brought on by a need to draw her back to him after the high of their day. For once she'd been his and his alone. He wanted to prolong that. To know she wasn't leaving. Ever since she'd begun staying with Hatori and his dad, Kyo had felt her slipping away. Piece by piece. Little by little. He recognised it in how she shared with him the things Hatori had taught her. The books he'd let her read. Her origami. How to use a stethoscope and fix up a wound. Kyo was hardly more than eleven but the very idea of his best friend falling in love with someone else, or even drifting away to spend time with them - it was too much to bear._

_He peeked at her through the shield he'd made with his pillow and saw a scarlet flush creeping along her cheeks._

"_Kyo - "_

"_Never mind, it's dumb. Forget it."_

"_It's not dumb. Not even a little bit. But Kyo, marrying you would be like - it'd be like - marrying my brother!"_

_His heart gave a painful fumble at the comparison to being siblings, Kyo still so unused to love that it was easy to see one form for another. Rika's eyes were bright in the moonlight through the window and she reached out and captured his hand._

"_Kyo I'll love you always. No matter what happens, okay? I love you all the way to infinity and back a million times over."_

"_But you love Hatori more." The flush that flooded her face was answer enough and Kyo, hurt, began to roll away to his humiliation. Rika held him place. When she spoke again her words were filled with earnest desperation._

"_I love you like sunshine. You make me feel warm and safe and comfortable. You're my sunny days, even when you're being dumb or silly - when I see you, I feel a glow in my chest." The words were pretty but he felt a stipulation coming. It got caught in her throat and Kyo sighed. Turned to show her he was listening. _

"_I know all I have on Hari is a silly crush. He's older and smarter and someday he'll find some girl in university or somewhere else that makes him smile and challenges him. That's his own age-" She sounded like she was trying to convince herself that such an outcome would be tolerable but Kyo knew her too well to miss the downturn of her lips or her glossy eyes. For all that he hated himself for asking, he was too enamoured with her explanation to stop now. He had to know how he'd never measure up. What it was he was missing out on. _

"_But it makes you feel -?"_

"_Like a whole sun went off in my body. I get warm right down to my toes, my fingertips." She exhaled softly, gaze slipping over his shoulder and expression gentle. "Sometimes he lets me fall asleep on his chest and I can hear his heartbeat and it feels like mine will burst. Or when I'm there and he smiles in a way only I get to see and it makes me feel like that's something only I can do. That it's a smile all for me and me alone." Kyo, still smarting, was surprised to find sense in her words. He'd never felt that way, not even with her. Kyo had known anger, fear and rejection long before he knew love and yet part of him recognised that what she described was something that would never be within reach between them. Rika moved closer, rested her head against his shoulder. He pursed his lips together. _

_Recognising that and accepting it; That would take time. Especially when all he wanted was Rika by his side. Holding his hand. Making him feel - happy. _

"_I'll always love you Kyo," She whispered it to him, pressing her chin against his collar bone. "Even when you're old and wrinkly." He smiled. Stupid Hatori might have her love, but so did he and they had inside jokes. Kyo turned into her touch. Flicked his forefinger and thumb against her shoulder as he echoed back the familiar response. _

"_Because you'll be old and wrinkly too."_


	19. Chapter 19

"This whole damn thing is going to be a disaster, isn't it?" Rika smothered a laugh as class 2-D's homeroom teacher Mayuko Shiraki flopped down beside her at the edge of the room, a book clasped in her hand.

The disaster in question was their impending class play, the original idea of Cinderella having already morphed into _sorta Cinderella _and become a small pocket of chaos confined to their classroom alone. The shrieking over various parts, scripting and everything in between had been causing her a headache for days.

Rika, smartly, had volunteered her services for prop creation and thus avoided the acting roles.

"It'll certainly be something." She shifted the card background she was painting across her lap, adding some faint details. "I don't know why you sit through it. If I were a teacher, I think I'd just lock the door and throw away the key seeing that."

Her paintbrush was waved lazily at Uotani's sudden, off script, outburst at one of the Yuki fangirls and Mayuko sighed deeply.

"It's a good thing you're not a teacher isn't it."

Rika grinned.

"It definitely is."

"Speaking of, have you given more consideration to what you wish to do when you're done here?" Rika's hand paused, eyes flickering up to see who else was about. Her teacher had chosen an opportune moment to isolate her and she felt a small flash of annoyance. She'd been doing rather well at avoiding these topics and now there was no escape.

"Some." She hedged. "I don't want to run a dojo."

"I didn't think you did." Surprise directed her eyebrows higher into her forehead, hands stilling on the small flower detail she was painting.

"I want to go to university."

"To do -?" That was where she stumbled. Rika _had_ been weighing up options. Had even stumbled across one in particular that seemed to fit. She just hadn't voiced it yet. Pink creeping up her skin, the young woman studied her teacher with quiet consideration.

"Nursing. I'd like to be a nurse." Her eyes flickered away as the worlds burst from her almost too quickly, "That's dumb isn't it…" Mayuko rapped a knuckle against the desk between them.

"Nonsense. Your scores in science are good. Mathematics too. Your English needs a little improvement but I think it's more than doable if you work."

Rika's flush darkened. She _did_ work. Although her past few months hadn't been exemplary, it wasn't as though she'd completely thrown in the towel. Even when she'd left school and worked with Master Chiba in Okinawa, Rika had continued working. Recognising stung pride, the teacher raised her hand.

"I didn't mean that as an accusation. In fact, I wanted to suggest something to you."

"Oh?"

"Take your entrance exams come January." Rika couldn't help it, she laughed. It was devoid of humour.

"Now I know you're teasing me."

"I'm not. Miss Hayashi - and pardon my delivery on this but - you don't belong here. I see how you interact with your classmates. You've got years ahead of them in some cases of maturity, not to mention you lack interest in quite a lot of their lives."

"That's not -"

"It's not meant to be an insult. It's merely an observation. Be honest, how do you really feel being here still?" Rika's mouth opened. Shut. There was a sliver of truth in what Mayuko said. It wasn't that Rika didn't care about her classmates' lives. She was intensely invested in those of her small collection of friends and family, but beyond that it was hard to motivate herself to get involved in the usual high school endeavours. The dojo counted as her extracurricular activity. Even the few boys that had tried to catch her eye had been either scared off by the death of her father or Kyo's seething glare. Not that she herself had any interest in it.

Mostly, there were parts of it that all felt _juvenile_.

She pressed the bristles of her brush against the card, jaw working itself silently. It went against her instincts to offer honesty so freely, but these were things she had been struggling to voice for a while now. Turning her nose up at the opportunity when it was so blatantly placed before her was foolish.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm spinning my wheels here. I knew I wanted to attend university, and I knew how to do it. It was my dad that wanted me to finish out my diploma in person rather than remotely or at night school." Sometimes she wondered if he simply wanted her to have the proper high school experiences that had been robbed after her mother's death. After everything that had happened with the Sohma's. She chewed on the inside of her jaw before meeting the teachers gaze again. "Do you think I could pass them? For nursing?"

"With a little extra effort," Mayuko nodded, "I really think you could. Take a little time. Consider it. Entrance exams will be late January. We could map out a study guide. I can even give you practice ones to work on privately." The teacher stood. Patted a hand against her shoulder.

Rika resumed her painting, mind working overtime. How much did she _truly_ believe she could do it?

She'd simply have to survive this damn play first.

* * *

Her prediction had been correct.

The play _was_ a disaster. That said, at the very least, it was an enjoyable one. Watching the scenes unfold from the side-lines, Rika picked at the outfit Ayame had insisted she take since she didn't have an acting part herself to dress up for. The dress had too many buttons for her liking and was a particularly violent collection of pastels but at the very least it looked like something _someone_ might have worn under normal circumstances.

She'd put it on to appear in Momiji's videotaping of the final cast and crew bow so there was _some_ evidence of her having worn the damn thing, then quickly attempted to remove it. Only to find said _buttons_ made that endeavour extremely bloody difficult. Swearing below her breath, Rika nearly leapt out of her skin altogether when a hand pressed against her neck.

"Stop struggling you twit," It was Uo, though the realisation was hardly _comforting_, "I can't believe you even wore this."

"If I didn't that idiot would've manifested at the house," Rika groused, "Then Yuki would've ended up pissed at me and really I don't have the time for that."

"The prince would have gotten over it." She didn't want to admit that part of her felt _obliged_ to wear the thing since it was a gift from a family member. More so, the very idea of disappointing Aya and Mine after their hard work created a heavy feeling in her stomach that refused to sit right. So, she wore the dress. Uo sneezed and Rika flinched away.

"_Please_ tell me you didn't just hit the fabric," She glanced over her shoulder to see Uo grin, an elbow raised in front of her face. "Thank _heavens_."

The shape of the dress loosened around her shoulders and Rika tugged on her uniform as quickly as she could manage while Uo lingered against the nearest wall. There was something on her friends mind again and she had a _strong_ suspicion that it was to do with Kureno. A Kureno that Tohru had recently admitted was a Sohma who had little intention of following up on his and Uo's attraction. The good thing might have been to bring it up. Let their friend down easily. Instead they all circled around the subject helplessly, unsure what to do.

"Are you going to the next play?" Rika asked once she'd finished fixing her outfit into place. Uo nodded.

"Yeah, I've been looking forward to it." Uo fixed her with a look. "You coming or have the Sohma's swallowed you too?"

Rika shook her head. Smiled softly.

"I figured I'd give Tohru alone time with the younger kids today but I did promise Momiji and Haru I'd video their stuff for them."

"Think it'll be better or worse than ours?"

Snorting, Rika shoved the dress back on a hanger and tucked it away with her bag.

"Oh _definitely _worse. There's no doubt about that."

"Rika…" She could sense the build-up in Uo's voice and Rika's shoulders tightened in anticipation, "Carrots. Is something going to happen to him after graduation?"

Caught off guard by the question, Rika blinked blandly at the other blonde.

"Something -," She repeated, confusion creasing her brow, "What do you mean by something?"

"I don't know. It's just a feeling. Tohru's been distracted and upset lately and she won't say why but knowing Tohru maybe _she_ doesn't even _know_ why. I just - I can see how much she cares about him and I don't want him to string her along y'know?"

Rika nodded, mind turning dangerously. She'd been so caught up in other things she hadn't noticed what Arisa was speaking about but now that the veil had been shifted aside there were hints. Melancholy. Quiet, _desperate_, whispers that had emerged from Tohru's room when Rin had been there. Distraction from Kyo when they sparred that he always wrote off as _nothing_. Whatever it was, she had missed the warning signs. None of this she admitted to Arisa for fear it was Zodiac related. That in doing so she'd reveal precious secrets where they ought not to have been revealed.

"I'm sure it's nothing Uo." She forced a comforting smile onto her face and did her best to make it appear genuine, "Tohru seems fine at home. Plus, Kyo's not going anywhere. He'd at least have to tell me that much."

Still, that didn't dissuade the discomfort in her own stomach. It lasted long past Uo's departure and the filming she carried out for Momiji and Haru's class. Sitting on one of the outer walls of the school after the day's events began to wind down to a close, she heard a familiar shrill yelp of excitement and the weight of arms around her shoulders.

"Momiji," She patted the space beside her, one of her ankles tucked over the other against the wall, "How're you guys getting home?"

"Hari is calling by to pick us all up from Shigure's after dinner. Haru is waiting for the others but I was thinking you and I could walk home together?"

"Oh?" Her surprise wasn't out of dislike, but rather - _surprise_. She and Momiji got along splendidly much of the time, but he gravitated most often to Tohru's side. Today he seemed more determined to capture her, linking one arm through hers and tugging her from the wall.

"Yes. I think you and I deserve to talk a little. We don't get much time when everyone else is around right?"

"_Right_." Unlike Arisa, Momiji was difficult to read. He was ebullient almost ninety percent of the time, if not one hundred. To see him more reserved and serious threw her off kilter. It didn't matter that she'd been hoping to speak to the boy alone, that he had so easily flipped the preparation in her mind meant she had to rethink exactly what it was she wished to ask. Not to mention, him seeking her out surely meant -

"And I wanted to tell you about something too." Heart stumbling a beat, Rika's suspicions were quickly confirmed. Compounded alongside the uneasy feeling in her gut it created a cocktail of discomfort.

"About what?" Shifting the bag in her arms so it settled instead over her shoulder, Rika caught a glimpse of the pair of them in the glass of a passing building. Side by side, they almost looked like siblings. It was so jarring a sight that she faltered in her step and Momiji stopped to take note of what had caused her stumble.

His mirrored smile was sad and Rika's gaze traced the similarities in the shades of their hair. The lines of their jaw. It was the first time she'd truly _seen_ herself as a relation of the Sohma's, even when her own irises were echoed back at her through Kisa. Momiji squeezed her arm, head tilting so it tucked against her shoulder.

"We used to stand like this sometimes when we were kids," He murmured, "When it was near twilight and there were only the lamps, we actually looked like brother and sister." She felt it then, a _flash_ across her vision. Her breath felt sharp against her lungs as the memory flooded her senses.

/

"_Momiji…" Rika's voice was tentative, knuckle dusting the doorway gently. "Hari said you might want -," Her voice faded away awkwardly. What Hari thought the boy might want was beyond her. He wanted his mother. She wanted her mother. Not to be here in this house that was permeating with grief and change. _

_Although the walls were still scattered with photographs, the belongings of Momiji's mother had already been removed to a new home. That had been Akito's order. The old silk scarf Rika used to always curl around her throat when playing with the younger boy had vanished from hook in the hallway. The heavy winter coat that had been tossed around her shoulders when she'd once wandered out of Hatori's house in the midst of a nightmare no longer sat just inside the door. _

"_Ri-Ri?" The voice came from a different room than she'd been heading towards and the girl changed direction, winding her way up the stairs until she found an empty bedroom. Her stomach gave an uncomfortable niggle as soon as the boy appeared, diving into her arms. "I'm glad you came! We should play dress up again no?" _

_He seemed too upbeat, but who was she to decide how someone processed their grief? All she knew as he slung a hat over her hair and babbled away in a hectic mixture of Japanese and German, was that it was unfair. That his mom had made the choice she had. That his dad left him here. That even though her body burned with the fury of her need to _make it right_, there was no way to do that without someone getting hurt in the process. _

_So she laughed, and spun stories for him, telling him of Kisa's newest adventures. Of how she'd knocked Kyo to the ground twice in their last sparring session. It wasn't until he stood by her side staring into the mirror that she realised she was crying. Silently. Relentlessly. Worse still, he was too. Sniffling loudly, Rika squeezed the hand that was slotted into her own. _

"_From now on," She forced it between clenched teeth, trying not to blubber anymore helplessly than she already was, "I'll be your big sister okay. You and me. I promise it forever and ever." _

_He stared up at her with glassy eyes._

"_Will you help me remember it all?" Her chest ached with an immense pressure. A rubber band pulled too taut. She looked at him and felt it snap against her ribcage. It was the same feeling she had with Kyo after that day in the park. When she looked at Kisa. Love and something stranger. Deeper. "When she can't? When I can't. Will you help me?" _

"_Always. I promise." _

_/_

Tears caught on her cheeks, Rika blinking past her blurred vision.

"Your mom -," It snagged in her throat and Momiji reached up to brush away the moisture curling its way over her jaw. This memory had emerged with less agonising pain than the last sudden recollection, but somehow, she felt like it should have hurt more. He ought not to have been comforting her for it.

_And yet..._

"It's okay. I'm okay."

"I made a promise. I -," She covered her face with the hand not curled in his, breathing shallow and sharp against her lungs. How many foolish, terrible promises had she made as a child and then broken? Kyo. Kisa. _Momiji_? What had possessed her to offer them all the things she couldn't give them? What had that sensation in her chest been? The unbreakable bond that Ren had suggested seemed ridiculous in hindsight, but that was only meant to exist between Akito and the others. So then _why_ did the strange feeling persist that there was a truth buried just beneath the surface, waiting to breach.

"You wouldn't have ever broken it without good reason," The boy said brightly, derailing the trajectory of her thoughts and Rika was baffled at the ease with which he forgave, "And you're still keeping it. You came back and brought back the good memories."

Rika wanted to say that she'd had no say in the matter. That for all she knew if her father hadn't brought her back to Tokyo she would _never _have come back. Their reflections blurred with the memory of themselves as children, Rika still taller. Still weeping. Still riddled with an unnameable guilt so heavy it near crushed her limbs under its weight. Momiji smiling softly.

Sniffling hard as if it would clear the reddish tint around her eyes or undo the last six years of absence, Rika scrubbed at her cheeks. Saying sorry again couldn't change their past. It didn't give him back his mother. Didn't absolve her of any of the mistakes she'd made.

"What were you going to tell me?" She finally managed to ask, Momiji's hand slipping around her waist as they resumed their walk. Rika wrapped her own over his shoulders. Possessively. Sisterly.

"Ah, _ja_ -," He rooted in his pockets, pulling free a flyer and handing it to her, "I saw this and thought it might be a fun thing to do over the weekend with Kisa and Hiro. Just the four of us since Tohru will be at work."

She took the sheet, laughing as she realised what it was. A _Mogeta_ experience day at a shopping mall. Momiji could've easily just shown it to everyone but he'd specifically picked _her_. It added another knot to her throat, Rika recognising the action for what it was. A chance to bond with Kisa and Hiro again in a way that was special to _them_. A time that would be hers and hers alone. Dropping her head down to rest against his blond strands mingling with blonde strands, Rika smiled. Sniffled again. Her questions about Kyo would have to wait for a better moment. It wouldn't do to ruin this one.

"I think it would be a _wonderful_ idea. Thank you."


	20. Chapter 20

Saturday had begun stupidly early, Rika starting at the dojo before moving onto the Sohma compound to meet Hatori and the others. She hadn't intended to arrive early. Less so to wind up back in the room of Ren Sohma. It had been a progression of accidents and suspicions that drove her back to the woman and her twisted smile.

More and more memories had surfaced over the previous few weeks since she'd first crossed paths with Ren, not to mention the few slip ups that had occurred to reveal various zodiac forms. After the first change with Momiji, Rika had begun to take it in her stride but something she'd not been able to comprehend was why Ren had implied it was all _fake_.

She had wondered briefly if Ren herself had convinced herself that it was a lie to reconcile the strangeness of the curse but although the woman seemed _off_, she didn't quite appear mad. Not in the traditional sense.

"The bond," Rika asked over her teacup, the ceramic making a _clink_ as she lowered it back to the table, "How does it work?"

"From the way some of them describe it, it's a blessing," Ren spat the word, an extra volatile edge to her words this morning, "For others, a curse. It makes them unable to defy my child. Anything that is asked. _Done_. All must be forgiven."

"All _what_?" There'd long been suggestion that Akito was someone to be feared, evidenced by how Hatori had never explicitly _warned_ her not to cross paths with the Sohma head but yet he had managed to warn her in subtle ways. Keeping her off the compound where he could. Moving through the place only when he was sure their path was clear. Then of course, Rika had the addition of her partial memories to contend with. Most rose as _feelings_ and all that Akito inspired was fear. A chill down her spine. She knew it was foolish, but it was hard to shake. Fear that lasted beyond wiped memories and years of distance wasn't something to be trifled with. Not without being well prepared beforehand. Which was why she asked now - "Is Akito really that dangerous?"

Ren's laughter was sharp edged and devoid of humour. The look directed Rika's way rose the hairs on the back of her neck and not for the first time, she wondered what the hell she thought she was achieving here. Hatori had already promised her answers, but despite the slivers he offered her Rika kept reaching for more.

It wasn't her memories that she was so desperately seeking now. Instead she wanted to comprehend the chaotic structure of the Sohma family and how exactly it was she had once slotted into it. There were too many threads for her to have only been on the periphery of the curse, from her involvement in Kisa's early years to the friendship formed Kyo. Discovering links to Momiji, Hiro and Hatori himself only deepened her desire for understanding.

Rather than push Ren for answers that weren't forthcoming, Rika shifted tack. "So Akito clings to Kureno, the rooster." It was less a question than a statement of fact based on the knowledge Ren had supplied her with thus far. "Who else is within the inner circle?"

"Who do you think?"

Rika thought it over. She'd yet to meet all the Sohma Zodiac's but picking out the main contenders was easy when she gave herself a moment to consider.

"Shigure." A hesitation. "Hatori?"

There was something discomforting in the knowledge that the doctor was within this so-called _inner circle_. His profession would elevate him of course, but it was more than that. Hatori had become a figure of importance in her life, both present and past. Knowing he was answerable to Akito, and that his goodwill might extend only as far as the family head allowed it, set her nerves on edge. She wanted to be able to reap in the comforts of her connections. Not spend her entire time doubting them. Worse still, what if he'd been told to _lie_ to her? Rika refused to believe that he'd been filling her head with false recollections but he _had_ been careful about what he offered her. Was the driving force a need to protect _her,_ or Akito?

Hand brushing over her mouth, her nails dragged against her bottom lip. The movement continued until she had gathered the end of her braid between her fingertips, anxiously twisting the strands within reach.

Doubt was a dangerous weapon to wield and looking up into Ren's fathomless gaze made her even more on edge. How was she meant to parse out truth when each offering it came in only served to confuse and taunt her more?

"Why are you not part of this inner circle?" Rika didn't miss the flash of annoyance that passed over the older woman's face, nor did she dare challenge it. Akito's memory might have made her pulse race with distant fear but Ren's presence was like swimming bare before a shark. In theory, the diver would survive but one wrong move - one spilled droplet of blood in the water - and they'd be torn apart.

"My child has never been good at putting this family above their own needs. In time however," Ren dropped her teacup and made an errant flicking motion with her fingers that Rika understood to be dismissal, "I _will_ reclaim my place."

A maid was at her side in a moment, one hand pressed to her shoulder. Rika was by the door before Ren spoke again.

"Do come back. It's always so nice when family calls." Her shiver was barely repressed at the threat the words carried but Rika forced out an agreeable answer all the same. Once again, her visit had left her with more questions than answers.

* * *

The Mogeta fair was complete and utter chaos but Kisa it seemed, was loving _every second of it._ Her hair fanned out behind her as she ran from stall to stall, Momiji, Hiro and Rika bringing up the rear. Though she had originally intended on asking Hatori to join them for the day the meeting with Ren had stayed her hand. Not to mention the fact that she was sure he'd have utterly hated everything about the fair.

It was located in a shopping mall the opposite side of Tokyo from where the Sohma's lived, but a spot that Momiji told her they occasionally came to for various events or family business. It was on her tongue to ask if _she_ had ever played a part in such business; particularly as a heavy sense of familiarity surrounded her over the course of the day. When Kisa and Hiro had seen all the stalls to their heart's content, picked up a few souvenirs for the others and spent every bit of budgeted money from Rika's wallet - they finally drifted towards the other parts of the mall to wait for Hatori.

Tucking a Mogeta plush below one arm, Rika absently flipped her cellphone open and shut as she waited for any call to come through. It was an old model but sturdy, all that she needed to keep in touch with her various friends who actually had phones. Today she'd finally keyed Hatori's number into its list and her thumb traced the digits she'd already absently memorised.

Her feet stumbled when Kisa stopped short ahead of her, pointing towards a store front.

"_Purikura_! Can we?" Rika laughed, gathering the bags from their arms.

"You guys go ahead; I'll join you in a minute okay?" Hiro's look was mutinous as Kisa dragged him towards the photobooths, Momiji a happy skip behind them. Rika could feel nausea rising, the now familiar sensation of a memory gaining a foothold back in her mind. Sinking onto a bench she inhaled deeply through her nose. Out through her mouth. Tried to force it back down. Not now, she begged her mind, _later_.

It didn't listen.

/

"_Rika, you're missing out on all the fun!" Her classmate, Kuri, called from inside the nearest Purikura machine. "There's a haunted house next door we're going to do next!"_

"_I'll be along in a second. I want to text my mom and let her know I'm okay."_

"_Spoilsport! I'll give Itsuki a kiss in your absence." _

_Rika stuck her tongue out in retaliation, leaving the store and her classmates behind. She didn't even care about Itsuki, the boy having been an annoying thorn in her side since the trip began. Every step she took he was there, proclaiming that he'd be her boyfriend before the week was out. No matter her protests he remained insistent and she held some hope that Kuri was able to distract him. _

_Her popularity over the past year had been surprising even to Rika. Enough to earn her a few interested suitors and one or two dalliances into the more romantic side of her high school experience. Nevertheless, it was always school and sport that won out when it came down to where she was willing to throw her time. This school trip meant taking time out from the swim club and the dojo, the combination making her antsy and uncomfortable. _

"_He'll never notice you…" Rika almost jumped out of her skin at a voice close to her ear, looking up to find a teen her own age beside her. Not a classmate, a local, judging by the uniform that hung around their form. Placing their gender was near impossible, the person clad in a defensive layer of androgyny that blinded Rika to whom she was speaking to. Not that it really mattered as the strange expression on the person's face was far more interesting than anything else. The face was thin. Pale. Dark hair and even darker eyes swallowed Rika's reflection in them, but it the wry and twisted smile that made her wary. No one their age should've had a smile that terrifying. _

"_Who?" Following the line of the other's eyes she spotted a pair of young men lingering outside a store. One was fair haired and the other dark. The latter man looked up and Rika thought he might be twenty. Twenty-one. Whatever the other had said had made his mouth twitch in a hesitant smile and from this distance she thought she heard his laughter. His face was relaxed and open. Unguarded. Something in her chest keened at the sight, responding to a stimulus she didn't even recognise. Her hands rose to settle over her heart, the phone limp in her grasp. Trying to shove away the feeling, Rika's gaze flickered to the person beside her. Mustered up her best tone of accusation. "I don't even know them. Or you."_

"_No," There might have been a hint of softness in that voice, but below was a bladed edge that made Rika wince, "No, you don't, do you?" A challenge lived between each syllable and Rika studied the student beside her with a more critical eye. _

_A hand was placed at the soft skin between shoulder and throat, just the faintest edge of pressure to the touch. _

"_And you never will again. How fortuitous that we get to share this last meeting to remind you of that." Rika's body went stock still under the pressure against her airway, aware of the people that milled about but otherwise didn't notice the pair that stood right against one another. Dark hair mingled with light as they leaned close, pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. _

"_Send my regards to your whore of a mother."_

_Her lungs felt like they were on fire when she finally managed to capture her breath and hot on its tail was a blinding pain spreading along her skull. A name and voice had echoed as the other vanished into the crowd. _

_Akito._

_Rika staggered back to the bench nearest, body slumping against the blackness rising hand in hand with the bile along her throat. A dial tone was echoing from her phone but the teen couldn't hear it over the dry heave of her stomach onto the mall floor. She was scrambling for consciousness when Kuri's sharp cry of panic echoed above her and after that - _

_Emptiness._

* * *

"Big sister," Kisa's had crept into the room quietly as a wraith, startling Rika where she stood against the window, "Are you okay?"

Rika nodded. Smiled.

"I just needed a moment. Sometimes it gets a bit -" _Much_. She wanted to say. For some reason the word stuck in her throat, as though by saying it she might admit that Kisa's presence overwhelmed her. Unnerved her. Since those first minutes of pain, she had picked through shadows of their history together. Filing away what she could make sense of. Discarding the rest. Today's visit to the shopping mall had only added to the sensation of being utterly overwhelmed. She'd managed to pull herself together enough to partake in some photographs but when she'd attempted to leave the car Hatori had grabbed at her arm. Asked her what was wrong. Rika had shrugged him off, adopting a mask of quiet calm. She _needed_ things to go right for once. Not to have everyone creeping on eggshells.

Tohru and Momiji had done their best to facilitate days and nights like the one they were having, mostly to allow Rika time with Kisa in a relaxed setting. With Hiro too. To an extent, it was working. Kisa had slotted into her heart quickly. Easily. Which made sense given the girl had been there longer than Rika could even recall. Muddying those experiences with the murkier shades of her history within the family was out of the question. Even if she finally had put a trigger point to what had shoved her into her depression during her original second year of high school. Not the haunted house like she'd thought. Not even something small and inconsequential. Instead it had been -

_Akito._

The name tasted metallic and dangerous on her tongue. She wanted to spit it onto the ground and be done with it.

"What did you remember?" The question was carefully crafted and Rika gazed out the window. To the treeline baked in shadow and the brighter lights beyond. Kisa crept closer into the room. Perched herself on the side of Rika's bedding, looking up at the woman with earnest eyes.

Rika slipped to her side. Tugged a strand of that beautiful coppery hair into her fingertips. Puzzling out Akito's brief encounter with her during her school trip was too difficult so Rika purposely misunderstood the question.

"I remember this, back when it was long and unruly and I had to braid it for you."

Her hands moved. Swept along Kisa's jaw. Beneath her eyes.

"I remember us looking in mirrors and counting the way the flecks in your eyes matched mine. Your small hand in mine when you were so little that I was afraid to hold you. How you'd _cry_ when I needed to leave. These desperate wrenching sobs that I was sure would split you in two." All of it was clear to her now, the orbit of Kisa's presence in her life. A little moon that followed her path no matter where she went. The weight of a child's faith was a terrifying thing to hold and somewhere along the line, she'd dropped it. Let it shatter. That memory still eluded her. The turning point that had flung their house of dominos to the ground.

"The way you would wrap yourself around me when I stayed the night. Ask for stories. Fairytales. You loved the princesses the most, with poufy dresses and unlikely heroes." Kisa's eyes glistened in the partial light from the hallway and window, Rika brushing away the trickle she spotted before it could become a deluge. Bringing Kisa back down weeping would hardly win her favours with Hiro, and he seemed to be the one she most needed to impress. Even a day of emptying her wallet with merchandise hadn't softened his attitude any, the boy having verbally gone up one side of her and back down the other when she'd accidentally burned the egg she'd fried up for his portion of dinner.

"I still like those stories." Rika watched the taut curl of Kisa's hands in the skirt of her dress. Picked up the fingers and stretched them out one by one, brushing away the tension. This child scared her in many ways, not least because she feared that she could never truly make amends without knowing what she had done to hurt her in the first place.

"I know."

Rika was slowly learning that she had amends to make with many of the Sohma's. Kyo, she'd already begun with. Kisa next. Hiro. After that, discerning the role she played with Shigure would follow. Hatori. Yuki. Haru. Momiji. Those could only be unravelled with time and a willingness of the good doctor to give her back her past. Something he seemed reticent about even now.

He'd asked for her trust and against her judgement, he had it. Not that Hatori had done anything to prove himself unworthy. All she had was Yuki's once cryptic warning and the implied involvement laid out by Ren Sohma. Hatori himself still proved difficult to read. Having let it fester in her mind all day, Rika came to a conclusion. She had to rely on her gut. Her gut said to trust him. It would have to be enough.

"Oh! I brought you something." Rika blinked in surprise.

"You didn't have to -" Kisa waved off the protest, rooting around in the crumpled fabric of her dress until she unearthed the pockets.

"It's an old thing. You and I, before, we went to a fair like today. You asked me to mind this but I thought it would be nice to return it to you. We won them together." Kisa pulled two dainty chains from her pocket, the centrepieces of each entwined.

At the end of one, was a star. The other, a seahorse. On first glance they looked like cheap fair stock, as likely to leave green marks on the skin as break, but on the second there was something _more_ about them. Rika wondered if that was just Kisa's influence.

"I picked this one. And you chose that." Kisa handed her the seahorse as she attempted to undo the clasp of the star. Rika gently nudged her fingers aside and helped hook the chain around the girls neck. Then repeated the motion on her own.

"How does it look?" Rika asked, running her fingers over the little charm so that it could settle against the fabric of her shirt.

"Lovely." Her grin was sudden. Soft.

"As does yours." She meant it. Kisa had a way about her. A budding kindness that had always existed but was now flourishing under Tohru's hand. What might have become of the child had Rika stayed, she wondered. Nothing this good.

"Big sister, can we both sleep with Tohru tonight?" Rika didn't hesitate before agreeing. It was hard to deny offering this child the world. Especially with a face so full of ebullient joy and expectation.

Rika decided in that moment that no matter what happened down the line, she'd find a way to protect that innocence. The trust. Nurture it.

Most of all, she'd find a way to be worthy of forgiveness.


	21. Chapter 21

"I didn't take you for a fan of Shigure's novels."

Hatori nearly jumped out of his skin at her voice, Rika's grin wide and languid at catching the man off guard. She stepped closer, plucking the volume out of his hands.

"In fact, I _distinctly_ recall you saying they were gratuitous smut that should've never should have seen the light of day."

His mouth gaped like a guppy, clearly scrambling for words that refused to come. It was cruel but she was enjoying herself as she ran her thumb over the spine of the novel that held Shigure's penname. That she recognised the novels from their cover alone was a superfluous detail, one natural given she had been living with the man in question for months now.

After a long-drawn moment of Rika delighting in his silence, he eventually gathered his voice. A shame really.

"Rika." He cleared his throat. Straightened his spine. She saw the mantle of responsible _doctor_ settle back on his shoulders and almost regretted ever interrupting him. He'd been relaxed. Now he was – _wary_. "What're you doing here?"

She gestured to the books she was holding to her chest. Shigure's book, she slotted back into the empty space that it had been occupying. Despite their continued strides towards friendship, she hadn't yet shared the additional study she had been taking towards her university entrance exams. It wasn't shame so much as the fear that if she told him, then _failed_, she'd have to live with the awareness that he knew. On the other hand, she thought, if he _knew_ then he might be able to help her prepare. It wasn't as though a nursing programme was all that far from medical school after all.

"I had some things to pick up for school." His gaze flickered to the books a moment and back to her face.

"English?"

"It's my weakest subject but I need it if -," Less than five minutes and she had already stumbled over herself. Rika couldn't put it into words but Hatori inspired an honesty in her. Trust was a large part of that. For all that she kept going back to Ren Sohma, Rika still believed the wealth of her knowledge would come from Hatori as and when the man was ready to share. Ren was just - _a means to an end_. Even then, much of the time, she wasn't a particularly _useful_ means.

"_If_-?"

"If I'm going to pass entrance exams." Hatori's brow furrowed.

"Don't you have a whole year? Your grades weren't that bad last time we spoke -"

"I'm actually moving up my exams. With the right references from teachers and good enough grades on the day, I could be graduating high school next spring." He blinked. For the second time since she'd snuck up on him, she'd rendered him speechless. Hatori shifted his feet, buried a hand in his pocket. The doctor cloak shifted and the stance left behind was more casual than she was used to. Rika liked the way his shoulders softened. Expression light.

"Have you told Shigure and the others?" Rika inhaled through her mouth. Out through her nose. Failed to meet his eye.

"I'll tell them once I know for sure." Her teeth worried her lip and he reached for her. Tapped at her chin with a featherlight touch.

"That'll cut your skin," It sounded less like a warning than simply him observing her and Rika's skin tingled in the wake of his touch. His hands were always chilled she'd noticed, "You should tell them. They'll want to support you and April isn't that far away if you succeed."

Rika grimaced, good mood stumbling.

"I was actually considering an autumn matriculation. Finding accommodation is difficult, and then I'd need to make sure I finish my diploma on a strong note too. If I mess that up, then I'd need to do a preparatory course before autumn anyways so -"

"You won't."

"Huh?"

"You won't mess it up. I can tell." All at once there was a swelling relief in her gut that she'd confessed to him, if only for the look on his face. His surety wasn't warranted. In some ways, it wasn't even needed. Rika had spent weeks mulling over what Mayuko had suggested, studying and testing out the various plans thrown her way. In spite of that, it was nice to have the vocalised support. To hear someone, anyone, say that she was as capable and sturdy as her teacher seemed to believe. It was especially gratifying to hear it from Hatori. "Have you decided on the subjects you're choosing for your examinations?"

Rika nodded. Ticked the titles off on her fingers.

"English obviously. Japanese. Biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Ethics and contemporary social studies." Her face had screwed up in concentration as she tried to recount her game plan for the exams, suspecting she was definitely missing one or two of the lessons but that didn't matter so much.

"That's a lot of sciences. Are you comfortable with them?" There was an edge to his question that she couldn't put her finger on. Rika nodded.

"While I was in the Dojo in Okinawa, I helped do an afterschool program. Master Chiba told me it was to make sure that the kids who came along to the classes had some place to go, but I think she just wanted to give me an excuse to step up. I hated it at first, but I was good with the sciences. I even helped patched people up sometimes." She laughed. "Not as good as you obviously. It was just that it was easier to understand the gravity of an injury if I knew what was below the surface too."

She hadn't really thought about Master Chiba in a while, but the woman had been a pistol wrapped in a small casing. Rika was certain there were still bruises lingering about from the hits she took when Chiba was on a roll. Other things had definitely lingered. Her comprehension for how to deal with difficult kids for one. That had come in _wonders_ trying to negotiate her place with Hiro the last few weeks.

"Although I didn't originally go to my second year of highschool and wasn't properly _learning_, I did go to the odd cram school to keep my science grades up. I've contacted them for results too. Figure it's worth a shot."

Hatori seemed dazed and Rika's cheeks flushed. She'd been overrunning the conversation. She began to apologise, but he laughed. A kind smile lingered after the laughter faded. He rested his shoulder against the nearest bookshelf, the fabric of his suit obscuring the vision of Shigure's novel.

"I'm just surprised. You've been quiet lately. I thought you were dwelling over Sohma business -," He paused, "I'm almost glad I was wrong."

"Oh, I've been thinking about that too," She corrected him cheerfully, "I just - I don't know. I figured, being a Sohma doesn't have to define me. It's why we moved away. Why dad moved me back. Since the accident, it's just been an obsession at times to try and figure out where I fit into this world with you all. Of how I make amends for things." Her tongue darted out, wet her lips, "Don't get me wrong. I want a part. There's things I still want to understand but I can't have that be the sole thing I have. I want to be _more_ than Rika Hayashi or Rika Sohma, or whoever I was or will be once I know the full truth of it all.

"Last April, I agreed to come back because it was important to my dad for me to get the high school experience but I've done that already. I made the friends. I found my way back to martial arts. _I_ wanted to be here to get to university. If I can make that happen faster, and it's me doing something proper for _me_, then that's a good thing, _right_?"

Rika had looked away as she spoke, the truths spilling outward like the tide on the shore. Nothing short of a heavy rock wall could've stopped them and even then, it would've struggled. Hatori, for all his pretence, was not a heavy rock wall. He was a man. An ocean. The beach on a sunny day. She blinked and regarded him again. A handsome man. With a look on his face like she'd bundled all his best days together and gifted them to him with a bright bow. A look like that was dangerous. Unnerving.

"You're not the kid I remember, are you?" He asked finally, as though he both cautious and excited to hear her answer. Rika snorted without grace.

"I haven't been a kid for a really long time Hatori." Which sounded like a cliche. _Was_ a cliche. It didn't mean it wasn't steeped in truth. She'd stopped being a child the day she'd left Tokyo all those years ago, carrying an invisible burden on her shoulders and slowly losing the bedrock of her childhood. Her actions in the wake of the accident had been rash. Weak. From them, she'd become stronger. Surer of herself.

Telling everyone she cared for that she was leaving Kaibara high so soon was going to be horrendously difficult, but so too would be a year of moving through the paces. Spinning wheels wouldn't give her back her memories any faster or make amends in her place. Having a focus had put Rika on a trajectory she didn't wish to stop or slow down with, not least because it meant thinking about more than the complicated hierarchy of the Sohma family. It pulled her out of her own head. Given how much time she had spent within it since her father had died, it was a relief to feel something more than confusion or guilt.

Cheeks growing warmer under the intensity of Hatori's look, Rika tried to steer the conversation back to something safer.

"And anyways, if I get in - it's Tokyo. I can still come home at the weekends. I might not have classes every day so I could be here for dinner sometimes too. It won't be goodbye. Not like -" Trying to convince herself that leaving was the hardest part, but really - she wasn't _leaving_. Just. Growing.

There was a dawning comprehension that maybe she was trying to convince Hatori of this fact. Something he seemed to recognise in her face. Reaching out, he tugged the books from her hand. She relinquished them easier than she should've.

"How about we go get some coffee? I've not got anything on right now and who knows -," He turned the books over, eyes widening in surprise but recovering quickly. When he looked up and met her eyes, the smile he bore was too gentle to be anything human. "Maybe there's a tip or two I can give you for nursing?"

/

_Hatori's laugh was sudden and brilliant, the girl sitting between his legs pinning him with a scowl._

"_You're not meant to be laughing at me," Rika pouted, crumpling up the piece of paper in her hands, "I know I suck."_

"_No, no!" He protested, trying to discipline his expression, "You made an excellent attempt."_

_Her bottom lip jutted out dangerously, and not for the first time Hatori wondered how he had ended up here. Since their first meeting Rika had been back at frequent intervals and while he attempted to resist the pull of the child - each time he found himself sitting with her for hours on end. _

_His father liked it, the time Hatori entertained Rika freeing him up to see to other matters but there was wariness there too. Akito had proven herself volatile since Akira's death and any word that Rika was being treated with kindness could bring wrath down on all of them. So it became a game. How long can we spend with this child - how kind can we be - how much can we give her without anyone knowing?_

_Piecing together the circumstances of their young patient's appearances had been slow. The main household didn't accept the girl as a true Sohma bur beyond that, Akito was holding some desperate and cruel grudge against the child. Rika herself seemed to endure it quietly, and if that wasn't reason enough for Hatori to believe that the bond existed within her too - he'd have eaten his father's old physicians coat. Murky stains and all. _

"_Okay," He backtracked, "It's a terrible one but you're learning. You can't be good at everything right away."_

"_But you are!" Hatori snorted._

"_I really am not."_

"_Well 'Gure says you are. And Aya." His body went rigidly still, hands ceasing in the fold he'd been helping her straighten across the paper flower she'd been butchering. A part of him, some tiny selfish piece, had hoped that the others hadn't met her. That whatever little bubble of quiet companionship he had found with this strangely insightful child could be his, and his alone. After all, Shigure's love of Akito was the worst kept secret and Ayame only loved himself. Why should he have to share her with them too? Working to keep his tone nonchalant, Hatori asked._

"_When did you meet those two?" _

"_They came by with homework for you. Your dad took it but they said hi to me too. I answered your biology questions by the way." He should've argued that point but he was stuck on the other two members of his trio and their presence in his home. Wounded too that Rika had rebutted his question with her infuriating pragmatism. _

"_Did they know you were here before that?"_

"_I don't know. I guess. They brought stuff from my mom." Another crushing blow, the idea of Kimiko entrusting those idiots over him. "Hari I can't do this!"_

_She thrust the paper away from her, leaning back into his chest with arms crossed and chin tucked downwards._

"_Hey, come now." Hatori chided gently, mind twisting from his own selfish panic to the more pressing matter of the fragile state of her confidence. "You know, I'm pretty bad at sports."_

"_I've never seen you do sports. You could be lying." _

_Hatori tucked a hand under her chin and tilted her head back until she could see his face and he hers._

"_What did I promise you?" She sighed with all the injured indignance an eight-year-old could muster._

"_That you'd always tell me the truth." She forced his hand away with a shove, picking up the messy sheet of paper and spread it flat against her knees. "I bet I could kick your ass at martial arts then."_

_He couldn't help it. He laughed. Besides, it wasn't his place to chide her language. Part of him liked those surprises. _

"_I'm sure you could." _

"_Someday I'll show you how to fight too. To be stronger and better and then no one can bully anyone anymore. I'll be a wall. A crane." She paused in her work, tracing the lines on the orange and black paper in her hands, "A whole tiger. A whole tiger that fixes people and helps them be strong when they have to be, and kind when they should be."_

_He didn't say what he knew to be true. That for as long as Akito reaped some kind of power out of knocking Rika down again and again, no one would have any ability to change that. Not Kimiko. Not Hatori. Not even Rika herself. _

_Instead, he rested his chin on the top of her head and reached around to help her smooth out one of the wrinkled edges she had made. Instead, he let himself briefly hope. _

"_I look forward to that day. You'll be the fiercest foe of them all."_


	22. Chapter 22

Hatori nursed his third mug of coffee, a jittery edge to his hands and heartbeat. It was technically his day off, a chance for the man to escape the Sohma compound without Akito's presence looming over his shoulder. He hadn't expected to spend it with Rika in a quaint little cafe, flicking through textbooks and sharing knowledge. They'd split lunch. Then dessert. Ordered enough to continue to claim their table, neither willing to give up whatever bubble of calm they'd found. Neither mentioned that it was their third week in a row to meet like this.

The revelation about her career aspirations had hardly been surprising, but the man hadn't dared to tilt her opinion in any direction based on his recollections of the girl he'd known six years ago. Knowing that she was still interested in healing and science ignited something else in his mind. It reminded him too easily of their youth, the girl obsessed with any level of scientific knowledge she could wrap her mind around.

Even now that same desire to solve every mystery that crossed her path lingered on and when she pushed her dessert away from her, it was to fix him with a careful eye. As he looked at her the man was still trying to reconcile the child and the woman before him. She was headstrong. Stubborn. Soft too. Even so, he could read the tension and nerves in her body before she could sometimes and it was there now, just below the surface.

Hatori steeled himself for whatever was coming.

"How close were we? Really?" The rest of the cafe fell away in the wake of her words, Hatori still unprepared for how it shifted his world off kilter.

For as long as he'd known her, the man had offered her impossible promises. At one point, he'd sworn to always give her the truth if she asked. Ever since her return he had attempted to live up to that promise, whether she knew he was bound by it or not. This offering of honesty was more difficult because it not only had the potential to trigger her more painful memories, but _his_ too.

"We were friends." He hazarded after a long-stretched silence, Rika nodding but not looking away from him. She didn't quite meet his eye either. As though she couldn't meet do so without feeling the same things he did. A ripple of electricity beneath the skin. Tightness in the chest. A racing heart. Hatori had _always_ put it down to the bond. Once, as children, Shigure tried to suggest it was something more but he had quickly rebutted him. Rika had been hardly more than a child when they first met. She was still a high school student now. Not for long if her intentions were to see fruition but Hatori had never been the type to look for something that surely didn't exist. Whatever Shigure had seen there, it didn't exist.

That said, even _he_ couldn't deny how much older she'd become. Wiser. In the last few months alone, her demeanour had changed. Filled itself out at the edges with surety. Kazuma told him she spent her free time at the Dojo looking after younger classes when Kyo was otherwise engaged. Picking out the kids that had fallen behind and working with them one on one until they were more confident. Anyone would have had to be blind to not see the way she worked diligently towards repairing her relationships with Kisa and Kyo.

Too many facets of the woman served to blind him in her presence and when her fingertips brushed his, he felt the heat of her skin. A summer sun. He'd clung so steadfastly to his icy heart. To the winter that lived within his chest. The more she smiled and found her path without any of them to lead her, the greater the heat she exuded.

He felt the crackling shift of ice beneath his ribs even as he denied its existence.

"Did I -," She seemed to be struggling to voice what she wished to say, her jaw taut with emotion and he watched the way the muscle rippled when she finally released it, "When I left, did I abandon you without an explanation too?"

This time he had reached for her and nearly toppled her empty mug off the table in his haste to stop himself. Grabbing it, the man set it back upright. Cleared his throat. The immediate urgency of his movement fading, Hatori looked downwards. Studied the grain of the table top as though it was the most interesting thing in this café. The pretence couldn't last for long. He knew she was aware he was the one that dabbled in memories but he was equally capable of recognising that she didn't mean the extraction of her Sohma connections. There was a wretched edge of sadness to her tone and he wanted to take it and smooth it away like he had for her when she was younger.

"I was there, when you chose to leave. You didn't - you _don't_ \- owe me any kind of apology. If anything, I owe it to you."

"Why?"

The answer caught in his throat, Hatori sitting back in his chair and letting his jaw work out what he was going to say. He knew her well enough now to recognise she wasn't trying to smear salt in the wound by asking for an explanation. She just wanted _clarity_. The one damn thing he still couldn't give her. Not yet. It didn't mean he couldn't at least offer her _something_. When his eyes lifted, her gaze was serious. Unwavering. His exhaled breath was heavy.

"Because I let you go without fighting."

It wasn't what he'd meant to say. He'd _meant_ to say that he regretted taking her memories. That she had had to leave and suffered through her mother's death alone, unaware that there were people in the world that loved her and wished to support her. Somehow it seemed he still managed it, the image of her wiping at her eyes from the corner of his own making his eyes itch uncomfortably.

Not fighting Akito for Rika was one of his greatest mistakes. Hatori knew that. From the night she'd left to the night he'd seen her again in Shigure's house, a piece of him had been absent. For a while, he had filled it with work. With Kana. With _grief_. There was always some new emotion to consume him until he found a way to crush it back down. To freeze it and file it away until he could focus on the next step forward.

Since Rika had come back, those steps had been a cautious reach rather than a confident stride. He had to feel out each one so it might support his weight, discarding those that wobbled too precariously. Hatori disliked uncertainty. Rika was a world of it, from her invasive questions to the truth he still couldn't share with her for fear that it might unravel all his careful work in reintegrating her back to the Sohma's without destroying her mind in the process.

More than that, it dredged up old feelings. Once, he'd put them all down to the bond; Now he knew there was more than that. He _liked_ spending time with her. Watching the way her mouth curled at the edge when she was about to utter something inappropriate or surprising. That sharp narrowing that existed on the cusp of her anger. Hatori filed each micro expression away a little at a time, storing them up - for what, he didn't know.

What he did know, was that it was dangerous. To grow too close and risk losing it all again.

Somehow, that knowledge didn't help him keep her at arm's distance. If it did, he wouldn't have been sat across from her in a café, body frozen still at the feel of her hand as it closed over his own.

"Your skin is always cool to the touch." She murmured; her own expression uncertain. As though she'd been affected more by his admission than she wanted to admit or knew how to process. He could relate. He was still processing it himself.

"Yours was always too warm." He countered. "My father used to say you were a nightmare to treat until we figured out that most of the Sohma's run at strange temperatures."

"Most of the Sohma's, or the Zodiac's?"

"The Zodiac's."

Rika pulled her hand away, brow furrowed. He knew what question was coming next but this time, he was resigned to it. Hatori wouldn't have opened the pathway for it otherwise.

"I'm not a Zodiac." She spoke sharply. "I don't change into an animal."

"Neither does Akito."

"I'm not Akito either."

"No," He agreed, "You're not."

"I don't understand. Hatori, what _am_ I?"

"You're _you_," He saw her lips twitch with impatience, "Something different to the status quo. Something new. In all the generations of the curse, this is the first time someone has been born into the cycle that was immune to the effects of it." Mentioning the bond was too far, but this. _This_ felt right. Honest. Rika puffed out her cheeks with malcontent and he could detect the curl of her mouth before she'd even spoken.

"Your cryptic answers are going to be the death of me some day."

"I certainly hope not. I'd hate to have to do all that paperwork."

Her laughter bubbled up loudly at his morbid joke, the sound spilling over from an overfilled cup and Hatori - Hatori felt another hairline fracture tear its way down his chest.

/

_Hatori trudged after Shigure, digging sand out of the curve of his ear after his friend had decided he needed to become more acquainted with the beach. Summer times at the Sohma residence were best spent flitting between the sand and water, even if their days of sandcastle construction were a little behind them. At least, that's what he was trying to claim for himself. His twelfth birthday had just been and gone, Hatori affecting a new air of maturity that was surely expected. _

_His father had already begun talking about apprenticing him to the family memory skills along with some cram schools to keep him on track for his eventual medical degree. Not that Hatori needed such things, but it was good to be prepared. The boy didn't note how similar that voice in his head sounded like his father's more than his own. _

_Even better preparation, today, was to lob a sloppy ball of wet sand at the back of Shigure's head in retaliation._

"_Tori!" There were shrieks of laughter as chaos unfolded between the boys, the game expanding out amongst various cousins and even Kureno. At the beach house, it seemed easier to forget their curse. Not because it vanished or any such luck, but simply because here - Akira's ill health didn't hang over them like a weighted sword. Here, they were free to be kids for the sake of being kids. None of them could have put such things into words but they all knew the importance of it. _

_A towel flung over his head signalled the end of their game and Hatori took the steps back to the house three at a time to beat the others to their lunchtime table. For once, fate was on his side and the boy gave a triumphant grin as he alighted into the garden and looked back to see his cousins still flagging at the bottom of the steps. _

_Squeals of laughter piqued his curiosity and the boy shifted his attention from the house to the garden of the next one over, reserved for the family head. Finding a gap in the dividing fence, Akito was easy to recognise as she darted between trees. In and out, shadows and light. Entranced, it took him too long to realise there were two girls creating the effect. His gaze fell to the other curiously. A blonde girl with her head turned away from him, her laughter effervescent and contagious as she attempted to catch Akito. Whomever she was, Hatori had never seen them together before. He'd never seen Akito like this either. Carefree. Innocent. A kid. _

_Maybe that was just the effect of summer. _

_Adult voices came from the top of the garden and it was Kimiko's he recognised first. She was walking arm in arm with Akira, their bodies close and heads bowed near to one another. There was nothing secretive about the volume they spoke with but it was the casual intimacy that had Hatori turning away. The girls were gone from view. Shigure and Ayame were calling from his porch and he was going to miss out on his favourite foods if he didn't move quick enough. By the time he had finished eating and returned to the sea, the peaceful little moment he'd observed was long forgotten._

* * *

Shigure sat with his back to the table, Akito's weight a familiar presence against his legs. With her body thrown down that way it was hard to envision her as a dangerous woman, but even the prettiest flowers could bear the nastiest thorns. Still, no matter how much she made him bleed, he found it hard to forget loving her.

Her body turned, eyes gazing up at him through long dark lashes. Such expressions were calculating. Malignant. They took his breath away.

"I know you've had a hand in all this." She spoke finally. He raised a slim brow.

"A hand in what?"

"That _girl_. Her coming back. _Remembering._"

"Nothing I've done has been without your approval Akito." Which was true. Before he'd ever dared move Rika to his house, he'd asked. That didn't mean he hadn't muddled the truth for his ends, but he was affecting innocence.

"It won't work." Akito said, rolling so she stared at the ceiling. He found himself entranced by the curves of her face. The shadows thrown by the evening sun through the closed doors and how they tugged her into sharp definition. The fear he could see that twisted the corner of her lips into a half hidden grimace.

"What won't? She's already here Akito."

"When she remembers the deal she made, she'll leave again." _You sly thing_, he thought affectionately. He'd known Akito only agreed to suit her own ends, but the full extent started to unfold before him. Akito had made some deal with Rika as a child. Pieces clicked into place and Shigure formed a narrative. Akito wouldn't look the way she did unless if Rika were to fulfil the terms of that deal, she would shatter all of those she'd touched since her return. Break herself too. The zodiacs would crumble. Kyo. Kisa. _Hatori_. Hiro would rally against outsiders once more. Rin's tentative steps towards hope would be crushed. All of it was a ploy to bring each member of the zodiac back into God's arms. Funny, how quick Akito forgot that what drew them to _her_ was also what drew them to Rika. Was what brought Rika _back_.

Akito refused to believe in a severed god spirit. Why would she? It undermined her role. Created competition. Rika never even _knew_ her suspected role. So she'd loved them all without prejudice or expectation. Was it any wonder that those Akito had spurned with the most venom had found solace elsewhere? Any wonder that Rika had picked up the affection of those strays and tugged them to her chest like children.

As a teenager, he'd been envious of what he had seen emerging between Hatori and Rika the most. Rika, because she dared not ask for or expect that kind of love, received it in spades. Hatori, loyal to Akito but burned from the weight of duty on his shoulders, encouraged a bond of a different kind. One that defied his own comprehension, even now.

Shigure had known for years. He'd spent the time chasing that same passion. Desire. _Love_. It was natural that he could pick it out in someone else so quick. He knew to recognise the signs. Resented the ease with which the bond had developed while he was left scrambling for _his_ reciprocated affection.

"If you say so." He answered because it seemed she was expecting a response, running a hand over Akito's hair. Relishing in the closeness. Their comfortable isolation. "You know what you're doing."

But _oh,_ _how wrong you'll be_.


	23. Chapter 23

"_Tori_, my head feels _terrible_." Shigure whined, pulling the blanket he was carting higher to his chest. Hatori had his back to him but he didn't need to see the other man's face to recognise an exaggerated eye roll.

"That's your brain simply trying to comprehend its own stupidity." From the kitchen was a snigger he recognised as Rika's. Shigure pouted at his friend.

"You're going to stab me many times again aren't you?" It was accusatory, Shigure rubbing at his arm in preparation for the torture he was expecting. This time Rika outright laughed and the man turned his attention to the door. "I heard that!"

"You were meant to! Stop being a baby." Her disembodied voice was followed by the sounds of movement in the kitchen and he turned a pathetic look on Hatori. Scowled as he noted the other man was smiling.

"Both of you! _So cruel_!" He meant it too. The past couple months a terrifying familiarity had developed between the two, their shared humour dry as the Gobi Desert. He, the lone straggler forced to traverse it.

"She's making you porridge. Stop complaining and be grateful. She could've decided to abandon you for better pursuits like the other three." He harrumphed his disapproval at the same moment Rika appeared in the doorway with a tray. She seemed to be debating where to place the food before nudging a somewhat clean table towards his futon and setting down the tray. Carefully moving his manuscripts to a different spot. A little necklace slipped free of her shirt and dangled as she moved about, its silver charm glinting in the light that growth through the living room. Shigure squinted at it, then felt his eyes widen. A _seahorse_. Taking advantage of his distraction Hatori prodded him with the needle of medicine he'd brought. Shigure yelped.

"_Tori_!" Ayame would've _never_ done him dirty like that. He proclaimed that truth between the tickle in his throat.

"Ayame would be as useful as a glass hammer if he was here. Plus, he'd end up unwell too knowing you both." Hatori clucked his tongue, "Aren't you going to thank her for the food?" Grey eyes swivelled to the _her_ in question, Rika finishing up some place settings and stepping back. The necklace had vanished again.

"It's fine Hari." Rika flapped a hand in his direction, "Don't stress it Shigure. You just eat up and get better alright?" _Hari_. Mid nod his attention rolled to the other man in the room. His expression was met with a bland indifference. Shigure sensed a story, one that started and ended with Rika's recent missing hours over the past number of weekends, but he didn't dare follow it just yet. That way he might be spared another painful stab in the arm. Had he been at the top of his health Shigure would've leapt on a slip up like that without thinking. As it was, he barely had the energy. Catching colds were a momentous drain, but if he played his cards right, he could torture Mitsuru about his upcoming deadline.

"Eat your porridge. I'll be back in a moment." Shigure dutifully picked up his spoon, watching Hatori follow Rika to the kitchen. Eavesdropping from this distance was difficult but noting laughter and quiet conversation was not. He shuffled his weight to the door briefly, catching sight of the pair stood side by side. It was innocent, the young woman handing his friend and dish and waving him towards the cupboard it belonged in but he'd have had to be blind to miss the way her gaze lingered on his friend. Of the soft smile she received in return when he turned back to her.

Interesting, Shigure thought as he moved himself back against his pillows, _very interesting_.

After Hatori left, Rika propped open the dividing doors between the living room and his bedroom, flicking on the television so that they could both watch in peace. He was too tired to do much of anything and so he drifted in and out of sleep, the table folded away and the floor cleared. Rika had her head buried in a textbook, only looking at the television in bursts. Eventually he heard the rustle of closing paper. Drifted again.

"Why do you live here?" Rika's question caught Shigure unawares, man lifting his head to look at her. There were times she was as scarily wall like as Hatori and even now with her hands wrapped around her knees and gaze distant - he couldn't be very sure she actually wasn't channelling his friend. Or that she even sought an answer to her question.

"Well, I rather like having a place of my own. It gives me freedom to write." A lie, naturally. And yet it flowed from his tongue as easily as truth.

"I remember -," The words caused his heart to stutter, Shigure forcing his expression to something impassive so she couldn't read him, "You used to live in a different, bigger house. You used to sit by the big oak tree in the gardens with my mom. You said it was your favourite place to find inspiration. So why… why would you move here?"

He had fallen speechless too long, Rika's head turning to study him. While he'd known she was recollecting things, Shigure had thought it was only fragments. Small pieces. The memory itself was so distant to him he can hardly believe she's recollected it at all. His smile came sudden. Wan.

"I made a mistake. Something foolish out of spite -," Her clothing rustled as she turned to face him properly, amber eyes bright. "I was cruel for the sake of being cruel." Shigure had never framed himself as someone good, nor kind. Each action had always had a reason behind it, something to gain. The outcomes could never have been predicted, least of all the ones that had led to his being sent from the Sohma estate but even now he couldn't bring himself to apologise. Not when _she_ -

"You took me in when I had nowhere else to go. Fed me. Put up with…," She hesitated before continuing, "I don't think you're as cruel as you pretend to be." It shocked him, but he couldn't address it before she'd stood upright and moved towards the porch. "I'll be back later. I've got my key." Shigure watched her leave, brow furrowed. For a girl who'd been relearning so much of her past and trying to keep herself afloat, she certainly had a way of tilting everyone else's' world on its axis when she wished to. Dropping his head back to his pillow, he sighed.

* * *

_Rika had been slipping into the Sohma estate for years unnoticed, a gap in the wall near Momiji's house having allowed her to do so. She'd not been the least bit hesitant to do so on this particular day, the sky grey and overcast and her hair already matting to her forehead from where the rain had snuck beneath her hood. Rika was hardly more than thirteen but that didn't stop her from comprehending right and wrong. _

_Right was attending the funeral of Dr. Sohma. Wrong was Akito's insistence that she stay away from the service and its accompanying events. Which had her sneaking in after hours, her mom already home and almost apoplectic that Rika had been banned from the service. Rika had been much the same, unable to handle the anger and confusion in her chest. The betrayal of Dr. Sohma dying on her when she needed him. When Hari needed him. _

_The house was full of maids and various staff but those who had come to offer their condolences were mercifully gone. It took darting between the lower floor rooms she knew before she found the older boy, almost nineteen now and fast asleep on a futon in his dad's old clinic. The same room she herself had spent a large part of her last five years. _

_Rika shirked off her wet coat. Left her wet shoes by the door. She hesitated and watched Hatori, her goal having only ever been to see how he was. Rather than leave, content with the knowledge he wasn't in pieces, the girl found herself drawn to his side. Studying the way his dark hair fell over his closed eyes. Even at twelve, she could see that he was already someone beautiful. She'd seen that at seven too. _

_His face was slack. Eyes puffy. He'd been crying. _

_Rather than lingering, she threw a final look over her shoulder to ensure no one was coming and lay down beside him. Tucked her knees against her chest and slid her warm hand into the cooler one splayed across the blankets. She lay above. He below. In the familiar warmth of his presence, she was calm. Safe. Through it all, he slept. _

_He'd had a terrible few weeks. He deserved the rest. _

_Without meaning to, the girl let her eyes close too. _

/

It was a memory that had come unbidden, without fanfare or aching. Rika lingered in the gap between the Sohma estate wall trying to make sense of it. It was cold in the present but she could feel heavy rain on her skin. The bone deep grief. Most of all, the sensation buried deep in her gut that screamed for attention, telling her to find Hari.

_Hari_.

She'd tried the name out on her tongue. Weighted it against the doctor's smile carefully, ensuring she wasn't crossing some invisible boundary. Since he'd admitted they'd been close, the woman felt herself keep coming back to that thought. Wondering what had defined their friendship then, as opposed to what defined it now. He'd been instrumental in helping her with her exam preparation, creating excuses for study sessions and covering for her with Kazuma and Kyo. Making sure she was honest with herself, whether that honesty revolved around her capabilities for getting to university or the level of guilt she held onto.

The bulk of her recollections to date had all been punctate memories. Something uniquely tied to the person she was speaking to or triggered by an overwhelming emotion. This memory was different. As though it had been buried a little deeper than the others, curled away in a little box and hidden on the back shelf of her mind. It made Rika wonder what other things she was missing. What connections had been carefully severed and filed away.

Mostly, it made her curious as to how Hatori's ability worked. Was she romanticising her ideals, imagining him picking through the history of _them_ and wrapping them carefully in bubble wrap and packing boxes? Preventing them from being scratched. Torn. _Damaged_.

More confusing, was why she desperately wanted that ideal to be true. What did she gain from it? The Hatori she knew now was logical. Bounded firmly in reality. It was what had helped her recover after her father's death. The walls he built protected him, but they also had given her a place to rest and catch her breath. In the past few months alone he had been doctor, protector, guidance counsellor, _friend_. It was foolish for her to want more. Foolish of her to even _think_ of more.

Blowing out her cheeks, Rika saw her breath fog the air before her. Shook her head. There were fourteen years of memories she was trying to reclaim. To bring back to the surface. Why had that one struck so _deep_? Was it because it was the first of Hatori as something other than the man she knew now? Or was it that knotted desperation that accompanied it - the _need_ to find her way back to the boy of then in spite of the fear and grief and loathing that were also there too.

Music began from the back of Momiji's garden and glancing at her watch, Rika grimaced. She was late for her training session.

* * *

_Shigure had endured the day at Hatori's right hand side, Ayame on the left - together fending off overzealous mourners, annoying house staff and everything in between. He'd thought they were doing a good job until Hatori had made excuses. Removed himself to go lie down. _

_So, he and Ayame, unusually reserved, had taken up residence in the small room upstairs. Whispering their worries about their friend. Confusion about what would happen next. Hatori was due to begin his physician training shortly, but in the interim would they invite an out of family doctor to treat people? Would Hatori be expected to pick up his father's workload before he'd even had a chance to learn?_

_It was one of the few times the dog had ever found himself thinking about anyone but Akito for such an extended period and the whole thing unnerved him. When Ayame nodded off, long hair fanned out across his pillow - Shigure lay beside him. Mind racing. Erratic. _

_What if Akito got sick?_

_What if Ren did something dangerous again? _

_Around and around his mind went until it drove him half mad. Eventually he rolled from his futon and decided to take a walk. Rain was hitting the roof at a steady pace above them all, the sound too loud to be relaxing. Worse still, weather like this always came with thunder. _

_Downstairs, he dismissed the remaining maids. Raided the fridge. Snacking on an onigiri, the young man quietly padded his way towards the clinic that Hatori had retreated to. He nudged the door open as unobtrusively as he could manage with one hand full - only to freeze. _

_The gap he'd created in the door revealed two sleeping forms. Hatori he'd expected. The fair-haired child he had not. Somewhere in their sleep, the elder teen had pulled the younger into his arms. They were nose to nose. Untethered by the wounds of the last few weeks. Shigure knew Rika had been kept from the service out of spite. Knowing the consequences, she'd still come. Found Hari. _

_He felt a lump in his throat, solid and malicious, rising. How was it Akito spurned him but Rika dared their god's wrath for Hatori? He had begun to turn away when they stirred, and Shigure moved behind the door; Enough to conceal his form but still allow him a visual of the pair. It was Hatori that moved first, body registering shock at the young girl caught in his arms. Then a weighted relief. _

_Jealousy flared brighter. _

"_Rika?" His voice was sleep addled. Heavy. Hers was slow. _

"_Mhmm?" _

"_What are you doing here?" Shigure noted the sharpness of the words were countered by his unmoving hands. Hatori, for all his properness, loathed to let the girl go._

"_I had to come -" She spoke softly, but firm. More than might have been expected from a thirteen-year-old. Then again, the only time Shigure heard words like that, they came from Akito and loaded with expectation. Want. "Dr. Sohma was my friend. You're my friend." _

_Their heads were side by side on the pillow, the vision painfully intimate. He was a voyeur in this situation, of that he was sure. Knowing it made him uncomfortable but looking away - impossible. _

"_And if Akito had found you?"_

"_Then I get caught." Shigure had to smother a laugh, missing some of the words as he shook his head in disbelief, "-mom doesn't know I'm here either but that's okay. I'll sneak back later. I just wanted to be here you know? To see that you're -," _

_Okay, Shigure thought with thinly veiled contempt, she really almost said _okay_. _

"_Hey, why are you crying?" Hatori sounded accusatory, but when Shigure glanced into the room he saw bemusement too. Rika's face had been obscured by Hatori's hands; the girl's body pulled closer to his cousin's chest. _

"_I didn't want you to be alone but I couldn't go to the service. All I could think was how alone you'd feel Hari. I know Aya and Gure were here, but you -," She'd worked herself into a state, weeping loudly enough that Shigure was glad he'd sent home the maids. _

"_I'm okay. I'll be okay Rika. I promise."_

_She sniffled. Took a breath. _

"_But I wanted to say that it's okay for you not to be. That I could look after you for once. You always make me feel like I'm -," Shigure missed the rest, sentence muffled as she whispered it to Hatori. Judging from his cousin's shocked and pink face, whatever it was had been either surprising or pleasant. Possibly both._

_It crossed his mind that he ought to leave them to it, but this was a side of Hatori he'd not observed before. Uncomplicated. Soft. There wasn't a hint of malice in Hari, but he was careful with his smiles. With the verbal sport he engaged in. When Shigure had seen the two interact before, it was always with Dr. Sohma present. Or Ayame. Or any number of Sohma cousins, in-laws and out-laws. Never alone. Never like this. His ears pricked as Rika's voice gained strength again._

"_You're too nice to be alone Hari. To do this stuff by yourself." Shigure saw Hatori about to protest and the girl cut him off. "No, it's true. You spent all your time looking after me. Fixing me up. Minding me. Reading to me or making origami with me. I know that is gonna change now but I figured if I saw you, I could say that it's okay if you leave me behind but that I'll always be there to help you if you need it. Or want it. 'Cause you're my -," She trailed off, gaze unwavering on Hatori's face. _

"_You're my Hari." _

_Shigure heard the words that his cousin did not. _

_My Hari. _

_Mine. _

_I trust you. Need you. Love you. _

_Neither of them said such a thing. Neither voiced it. They didn't have to. It was evident in the way she'd wrapped her arms around his neck. In how his muffled weeping could be heard against the weight of her hair. Shigure could read it plain as day. He and Aya had been by Hari's side all their lives. All day. At no point had he broken down. He'd been only himself. Cool. Composed. A little shell shocked. _

_One conversation with Rika, and he'd opened up some invisible part of him._

_Shigure saw the bond's hand in the actions. Recognised too late that Hatori, his Hatori, Akito's Hatori, had formed something unspeakable with the Hayashi girl. Something that would never be allowed to fester so long as Akito was head of the household. As long as the curse poisoned her mind. In the same moment as his anger flared, it was snuffed out by realisation. _

_If Hatori loved Rika greater than he loved Akito, then something in the curse had faltered. _

_If he were encouraged to pursue it down the line - it might very well be the catalyst to freeing them all and from those ashes then he, Shigure, could claim Akito as his and his alone. Without fear of her being swayed by another. Of her needing to cling to another. His chest felt tight with the awareness of what that might be like. Of how much it could benefit them. Him, most of all. To feel that passion alone. That love. He wanted that love so much it ached. More than he hated Hatori for stealing the same feeling and claiming it without knowing what he'd done. All the Sohma's, every damn one, carried their struggle with intimacy like a striped warning hazard. _

_Don't get too close, it said, I'll bite. _

_That was how it was. Love existed too, but always with stipulation. A give and take. _

_He hazarded a final look into the clinic room to see Rika with an arm hooked around Hatori's neck. A hand buried in his hair. His face curled into her shoulder. She looked small beside him, even for a girl as tall as she was growing to be. Someday, an act like theirs wouldn't be born of innocence. It would be loaded with intent. With tension. This love, he wondered, is it the same? As inexplicable and binding as what he felt for Akito? Would it last? Shigure leaned his weight against the door. Quietly watching. Considering. _

_If he had to leave nothing but ash in his wake, he'd make it happen. _

_Someday._


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: Just a quick note from me! Hi! :D When I originally wrote this story it was to have 25 chapters and had a clear ending, but as I wrote this chapter things began to unfold that shifted the momentum of the story in a different direction than even I had intended! Which isn't a bad thing, but it does mean updates might be a little slow over the holiday as I write/edit/fix things into a cohesive tale of about 36(!) chapters.

I'll still try to update at least every week though, and so far, I've loved every comment, favourite and follow this story has received! So thank you, lovely readers, for giving this little plot bunny feel loved, wanted and I hope at least some of you are happy where this sorry tale ends up!

* * *

"Can you believe the New Year's celebration is tomorrow?!" Tohru's excitement was palpable, hand scrubbing at the edge of the table to remove the non-existent layers of dirt. Since Shigure's illness the house had been a little messier than normal, what with Rika's exam preparations and some school tests occupying all of their time. The idea of cleaning the house in anticipation for the new year had been the Honda girl's idea and like a flock of sheep - the rest of the denizens had fallen into place.

Which left Rika sifting through a collection of odd socks that had been retrieved from the depths of the machine, trying to match up to those she had demanded from the others. Shigure's she refused to touch but the others had been mostly organised into small bundles. A pair of her own had been salvaged from within the mess, as much as Rika had tried to swear blindly that none of them could _possibly_ have been hers.

"The year flew," Tohru continued, "And apparently Momiji and Hatori are dancing at the zodiac banquet this time around. Imagine how wonderful they'd look."

Rika's hands stilled, a tilt to her mouth as she imagined that dance.

"Whoopdeedoo for them," Kyo's voice was flat as he appeared in the doorway carrying a bag in his arms. He didn't look angry but resigned. "At least I don't have to dance around in one of Ayame's dresses like an idiot."

"Ayame made the outfits?" Tohru's enthusiasm was unflappable and Kyo looked past her to Rika, silently saying.

'_Are you getting a load of this idiot?'_

Rika's equally silent response answered, _'She's your idiot'._ He pointedly missed the comprehension, huffing malcontent as he gestured to the bag in his arms.

"Where do I need to put this stuff?"

"Is that the donation items?" Tohru asked, receiving a confirmatory nod. "There's more by the door. You can leave them there please."

The teen huffed off again. Rika, meanwhile, grabbed a rag from the other girl to dust out the tv stand and the various books that had made it to the shelf beneath. As much as she had felt she would be better served by studying today, the young woman found herself enjoying the routine of their cleaning. Both Yuki and Shigure were due at the main house the following day while Rika, Kyo and Tohru were heading to Kazuma's dojo for the festivities. From what Tohru had said, Rin would be joining them too. She was intrigued by Rin and her connection to Akito, knowing the other girl was close enough in age to herself but until now they'd hardly shared much by way of conversation. Passing ships was a more accurate descriptor.

It wasn't a personal thing, but it _was _a Sohma thing. Until Rika got all her memories back, she was working with Hatori to control what did come along and keep them from buckling her again. Even with promises that there were no more hidden connections tying her to the various extended family, Rin seemed like someone who carried a lot of troubles. Troubles Rika bore sympathy for but couldn't carry. Not yet at least.

Most of what she'd learned of Rin had been from Ren, and all of it had been worrisome.

Rika still struggled to comprehend why Ren was so forthcoming on almost every topic but Rika herself. In shards, she'd shared the complicated history that Akito bore with Kureno. With Shigure. Hatori and his eye. Rin's fall at Akito's hand. Things Rika couldn't have known growing up and now had to bear alongside the weight of her own involvement. Why the woman was so forthcoming was still a mystery. From what Ren continuously said, she didn't believe in the bond or the curse, and yet she outlined every part of it that she could into Rika's hands.

It could've been a ploy to undermine Akito's power. To structure Rika as some kind of foil. Strange considering everyone had made every effort to keep Rika from crossing paths with the other woman. Even Rika was apprehensive about meeting the Sohma head. Someday, it would happen. If she had any say in the matter, it would happen _after_ her memories were completely restored. The image she had of Akito now was terrifying. Someone dangerous. _Wicked_.

Even with some kind of magical bond, why would _anyone_ subject themselves to a person like that? What could motivate them? Part of that thought process was why she gravitated to Ren. The woman was part of the craziness without being _part_ of it. A stroke of familiarity like that was just too good to pass up on. A gift horse too valuable to ignore.

"Rika?" A hand shoved against her shoulder and she jumped. "You're becoming as much of a space cadet as Tohru. Where's your head at?"

Kyo was standing over her and at the startled look on her face, he crouched down. Hands hooked over his thighs and concern etched into his features. Rika shook him off.

"Don't stress I'm fine."

"Then don't make it so hard to believe you." Grinning, she shoved at him and he stumbled backwards, coming to a halt on the floor beside her with a mirrored smile of his own. "I hardly see you anymore. Where've you been disappearing to on Saturdays? Rei's been bemoaning having to teach all those eight-year olds by herself."

Rika turned back to her cleaning but not before shaking out the dusty cloth at the teen. Tohru had moved towards the stairs if the offkey humming was anything to go by and the familiar click of the mop unfolding told her that the other girl was suitably distracted to not overhear. Not wanting to tell Kyo about the entrance exams just yet, she chose something else to divert him. Most of her questions of late had gone to Hatori, Rika accepted that Kyo had told her the bulk of what she needed to know about their youth. For the most part, she had accepted that. At least until Yuki and Shigure had outlined their plans for the celebration banquet hot on the heels of Hatori ringing her with _firm _advisement she stay away from the Sohma compound the following day. It had rankled her. Souring a night she'd been looking forward to. The plan had _always_ been to spend it with Kyo and Tohru but to be pointedly told she wasn't welcome at the Sohma estate, _with her family_, – well, there had to be a _reason_. Rika believed she could root it out through Kyo.

"Why don't you get to go to the banquet tomorrow?" His form tightened, that now familiar narrowing of his irises alerting her that she'd hit a nerve.

"You don't remember that bit?" Rika shook her head. Ren had made insinuations towards the fracture within the flawed cat spirit's relationship to the Zodiac's. Rika had felt too invasive to ask Kyo about it without him telling her first, but right now she was battling indignation. It would've taken a bucket of ice water over her head to cool the embers of her determination.

Kyo's head bowed forward, Rika shifting one leg beneath the other to try sit comfortably. He was a hair's breadth from her cheek and she felt it then. An old sense of familiarity and peace that always alighted at times like this. Most often it was with Kyo, but recently she'd felt with it Hatori. Momiji. Kisa. The people she kept gravitating back towards again and again. The ones she'd had the strongest connections to as a child. The ones who calmed her frazzled nerves by just being close to her.

"We used to do New Years together y'know? Your mom always made sure we had movies, and a dinner. A banquet all our own she'd call it." Rika wasn't stupid. As much as had been told she played some part in the Zodiac's lives, she hadn't expected to learn she had access to every part of their lives. Nevertheless, the knowledge still stung. She and Kyo, whatever they were, had bonded as outsiders. "Just you, and me, and your mom. Shishou once. We'd stay up until dawn. Have cake. Throw our own party."

What read between the lines was the reasoning _why_. They'd not been welcome at the bigger party. To mingle with the true Zodiac. That they'd found one another then, and now, was beside the point. They'd been _children_. Kids who wanted part of their family so badly it ached. She could feel that old wound now. Sharp. Indignant.

"It's not right."

"No." He agreed. "It isn't. Maybe we've just got to find the stuff that's better now. Tomorrow I get to spend New Year's with Shishou, you and Tohru. That's new." Softness lined Kyo's features and his gaze instinctively darted towards the door. "That's _good_."

Rika flung her dust rag at him to break the heavy beating of her heart.

"When did you get so sappy?"

"Finish your dusting and shut up." The cloth was tossed back at her unceremoniously and Rika almost forgot the curiosity that had plagued her in favour of seeing that smile. Untethered. Simple. The kind of smile she should remember. Should have grown up seeing every day. The injustice of it all rankled and just as quick as it ebbed, her curiosity returned at full speed. Someday, _soon_, she was going to get to the bottom of all this.

* * *

"So why are _you_ here?" Rika couldn't stop herself from asking the question, eyes darting around the quarters that Ren Sohma had been granted. She shouldn't have been here. She was _meant_ to be at the Dojo, ringing in the celebrations with Kyo and Tohru. Rika had every intention of fulfilling that later on, but for now she'd also covered her bases. Fed them a story about a family tradition that would keep her away until later in the evening. There were gnawing questions that needed answering and as much as she knew it was wrong, Rika had come back to this woman yet again to find them.

Ren gave a small wave of her hand, movement flippant.

"This is my home. _I_ have a right to be here." There was something dangerous in the tone and Rika placed her cup back onto the small table that sat between them.

"It's a funny way of showing it, leaving you out of the New Years celebrations." Her fingertips traced back and forth over the rim, gathering up the beaded traces of her tea. Ren created an aura of benign support but swimming below the surface was something more reptilian. Not like Ayame or Hatori, both of whom embodied their various Zodiac's in ways that made sense. There was _danger_ in the way Ren studied her sometimes. Compliments were offered as freely as insults.

Rika couldn't have explained why she was needling the woman, less so why she was doing it tonight of all nights. What desperation did she feel to rattle this woman? Part of her visits until now had been trying to understand Akito and what had lead to Rika's own banishment. To form the pieces of the tale she possessed into a whole picture. Her mother's role as a Sohma. The relationship she had with Kyo during her youth. Kisa and Hiro's involvement. Tonight, it was something more feral. A need to push this woman far enough to actually _give_ her something useful. Tangible. A memory she could hold and claim and comprehend. A means to round out the edges of all the fragments she held. Something in Kyo's words the day before had struck deep. If she could know, if she could _understand_, then maybe she could actually help.

Hatori would've reamed for being here, for defying his strict advisement to remain safe at Kazuma's house with Kyo and Tohru while the New Years' celebrations were afoot. Music drew her attention upwards and Ren smiled. Leaned close so that her perfume was cloying and pervasive.

"Do you want to see it?"

The right answer ought to have been no. To resist such a temptation. Instead she nodded agreement and was hastily led through a maze of hallways until they stood behind a screen door. It was slightly ajar.

"Akito attempts to keep everyone but the Zodiac from ever seeing, but one of the maids has a soft spot for me." _That, or you terrified the poor girl,_ Rika thought. Falling into position beside the elder woman, through the sliver of space it was almost enough to see the two performing bodies across the room.

Momiji's shock of blonde hair drew a smile to her face, the perfect contrast to Hatori's stern concentration. The costumes, designed by Ayame, were both garishly detailed and endlessly beautiful but even that wasn't enough to mask the beauty of the man and teenager performing the dance. Momiji's costume, bright as a sunset splayed across the sky its colours melding - bounced against Hatori's dark costume, the upper layer almost matching his dark hair.

Rika's chest felt tight with something unnamed. Awe at the beauty that was kept from everyone but these select few. Anger that not everyone got to partake. Ren's expression was self-satisfied. Smug. It made her hands curl against her sides, nails buried against her palms. Swallowing down the rage that expanded under her ribs, Rika tried to center herself by focusing only on Hatori. A little of the tension seeped from her shoulders. He looked so serious that it would have been funny if she hadn't been clawing her temper back into place. Hot on the heels of anger was hurt. Exclusion. Emptiness. Her throat ached with it. Burned.

"Oh," Ren's voice was too close to her ear and Rika jumped, "It seems I've upset you." Rika pushed her way back from the door, sleeves dabbed at her eyes.

"It must be something terrible to feel the way you do." Rika's body tensed, sensing the shift of mood. The music from the party had begun to fade and in its absence she felt cold. _Alone_. "Never _wanted_ by them like Akito was. I watched how you were villainized for your very existence you know. I _tried_ to tell them all this zodiac bond nonsense was nothing more than irrelevant fantasy but -," Another hand wave, another easy and crushing remark.

Why had she come back?

_What was the purpose of this?_

"Of course, some of us can't help our breeding can we?"

Rika turned, confusion clouding her features. "What do you mean _breeding_?"

The dark haired woman advanced, a hand creeping along Rika's neck until she was held fast by the touch. Fingertips indented against the curve of her throat. Rika was tall, but Ren taller and somehow that made her feel all the more in Ren's thrall as she leaned into the touch so that it wouldn't ache. It didn't work. "Just like Akito, you were a _toy_. Just never one worth keeping. After all, who would dare lay claim to a _bastard_?"

It felt like a rug had been pulled from beneath her and Rika scrambled backwards, eyes wide. Unable to escape, Ren's grip tightened. She had to rasp.

"You're _lying_ \- I'm _not_ -"

"Akira always did get duped by kindness," Ren murmured, eyes flashing coldly and then Rika knew. She understood without the next words needing to be said but the woman was on a roll, words flung like serrated blades, "I did always wonder what your mother said to fool him to her bed. Not enough to be _worth_ anything clearly. Not enough to keep you."

"You're _lying_."

"Am I? Did I _imagine_ my husband fawning over your mother or the rising swell of her stomach? Did I imagine the way he looked at you like you were the answer to everything? How my child looked to _you_ over me?" Ren stepped closer, words hardly more than a whisper but they drowned everything else in the room behind them out. The expression on the elder woman's face oscillated wildly between disgust and glee. Spots began to curl over Rika's vision. "Poor thing. Always the laughing stock. Did you know they whispered about you then? The Zodiac reject. They whisper about you now. I hear it. They tell me. The poor child. The bastard child. The being lower on the totem pole than the _cat_."

"Tell me did you _really_ think they cared about you? That _any_ of this family cared? They give me means because _I_ belong here but you - _you_ never belonged. I was waiting for you to understand but it seems even intelligence skipped you in its blessings."

Ren pushed her away. Gasping breaths tore her throat in their desperation for oxygen and it took every ounce of energy to stay standing. To not curl to the floor. Ren's final blow was verbal and bone deep, the woman leaning forward to exhale it into Rika's gasping mouth.

"They don't want you. _They never did_. Not even your Takuto Hayashi could bear to look at your face."

Breathing hard, Rika leaned for purchase against a door and missed. Stumbled. Whimpered.

_Fled_.


	25. Chapter 25

Hatori felt strained. The banquet had _seemed_ to be progressing well. The man managed to shirk Shigure's attempts at photographing him in the damn costume. Rika was safe at Kazuma's place. In short, he could focus on the night without persistent worry in his gut. He had been so smug in the knowledge that so much had gone to plan that perhaps _that_ was why the whole thing had gone topsy-turvy.

Trudging back to his own house with Yuki in tow, the man had noted two things upon entry. First, he certainly hadn't left the lights on, and secondly - a pair of discarded shoes at the entrance.

Requesting Yuki to wait while he gathered his kit to stitch the wound, Hatori hesitated outside the old clinic his father had kept. Sliding the door open revealed a sleeping form, Rika's limbs long and scattered across the coverings of the small bed. Directing Yuki to his living room, he covered her with a blanket and noted the puffiness around her eyes. The pale edge to her skin. With a hand lingering on her cheek, Hatori recognised the that bruises had blossomed in a circlet around her neck. He was going to have to get to the bottom of that but, _not yet_. He sighed.

_Why_ had he been smug?

Dealing with Yuki was quick, cleaning and tidying up the wound left in the wake of Akito's outburst. He ushered the teenager out the door as curtly as he could manage, still unsure how to deal with the next problem. Hands fixed into fists, Hatori was uncertain whether he was angrier at Rika or himself more.

Until he knew what particular brand of stubbornness had come along tonight when he had _explicitly_ told her to stay away, Hatori had to hold his tongue. With no sign that the young woman was going to wake anytime soon, Hatori moved back to his living room just in time to see the sliding door open and a hand appear holding a bottle.

"Oh _Toriiiiiiii ~" _The man hesitated just long enough for Ayame and Shigure to get both their heads into the space between the living room and porch before he could slam the door shut, "Come play with _us!_"

"Not now you idiots -"

"But it's _tradition!" _Ayame was pouting.

"You _never_ come play anymore."

"And we brought the good sake too."

"If you don't, how _ever_ will I fill the void of our _dear_ Tori's absence?"

"I! My darling Shigure, will have to simply fill the emptiness in your heart _and_ your -,"

"Enough! Just get in here and shut up, would you?" He immediately regretted the order, reeling back from both men as they disposed of their shoes and began commandeering his kotatsu, "You smell like a brewery! I've only been gone a half hour."

"We wanted to make sure it still tastes good." Ayame's giggle was enough to leave Hatori pressing forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. _How_ had he ended up with these two nitwits as his closest friends in life? "And Gure was _pouting_ because Akito left with Kureno." Throwing a last haggard look at the door behind him that led to where Rika slept, Hatori closed the three of them off into the living room amid Shigure's drunken complaints. The action, of course, drew the attention he didn't want.

"Where's my dear young brother? I thought to hold his hand in his time of need." Hatori had to forcibly pull his friend back from going to the hallway as he spoke, relieved Rika hadn't yet come to investigate the noise. If she was sleeping through this, something must have wiped her to the point of exhaustion.

"The _only_ thing he needs is space from you!" He shoved a hand down on Ayame's shoulder, snagging the bottle they'd brought with them from his hands and examining it critically. "Have you two just been chugging this stuff from the bottle?"

"Oh no!" Both exclaimed, "We came prepared!" And from their sleeves they drew out a number of small cups, some of the snack food left over from the banquet and another bottle of sake. His mind boggled. How on _earth?_

Ayame, sensing confusion, tugged the corner of the sleeve back to reveal a double lining.

"Sleeve pockets Tori, _they're all the rage!" _It was the kind of imbecilic comment that had the man grabbing a relatively clean cup of his own and divvying out two others to his friends. He poured them each a reasonable helping of alcohol. Hatori suspected he'd need it before long. There was an aspect of familiarity in the chatter that rose around the table, much of it aimed at poking fun of one of them or another in quick succession. Before he knew it, the three had polished off one bottle of sake and begun the next.

It was at this point, just as his shoulders relaxed and the anger he'd felt earlier diminishing that, _of course_, the door opened.

All three men froze, Hatori feeling Ayame and Shigure's eyes dart from a confused Rika in the doorway to his own face and back again. Colour flushed along his cheeks.

"_Now_ who's been keeping secrets!" Shigure finally burst out as Ayame rose to beckon the girl in and under the edge of the kotatsu beside him between her panicked attempts at refusal. "You told us our lovely Rika was spending her evening with Kazuma!"

"He just wanted to keep her for himself."

"What a cruel man our Tori, _stealing_ away our innocent flower." The more the pair went on, the deeper the red across his skin became and even Rika's protestations fell on deaf ears. He tossed her a look of apology, knowing all too well where their minds had begun to dance towards. The harder he tried to refute such comments, the lewder they'd get. His cousins sober were a handful. With undiluted family sake coursing their veins, they couldn't be stopped.

"She looks tired, did he simply _ravish_ her," Shigure had grabbed hold of Rika's chin, Ayame nodding along in a mockery of serenity, "But when did he find the _time_?"

"Before! In _my_ costume. Oh _Tori!" _

"Shut up shut up _shut up!_" Rika's voice cut through the amusements, her face glowing with mortification and her hand reaching out for a cup. Knowing better than to protest at the look of mutinous disbelief that had spawned across her expression, Hatori dutifully picked up the bottle of sake and poured her a measure.

"Even getting her _drunk!" _Shigure's laughter was cut off by the hand that snagged in his collar, Hatori's frayed temper having finally snapped.

"Do you want me to _describe_ the ways I could murder you, or simply begin?" This earned shocked laughter from both Rika and Ayame and he let his cousin go, though not without a look of disdain first. Accepting a cup that had been refilled by Rika herself, Hatori waved off whatever excuse she was about to give for her presence there. That would be a conversation best saved for sobriety, and in private. Somewhere between waking and coming to join them, he noted that she'd pulled her shirt collar higher to obscure the marks on her neck.

"See how he _pines_ for her." Ayame had sprawled across Shigure, both men sharing loud wistful sighs that rose the blush in Hatori's face once more. What had he done to deserve this? _Hubris,_ he thought. He'd expected the night to go well and now he was paying for that expectation with a horrifying, _mortifying_, reality.

Hatori drew the conversation back to where it had been before the interruption, something to do with a recent order to Ayame's shop from some kind of celebrity. He didn't much care, alcohol and the accompanying suggestion in his friends' words having created too much of a whirlwind in his head to pay attention. Against his better judgement, he allowed himself to look at the young woman once she was fully engaged with Ayame's story.

When he'd first seen Rika again after her return, he'd been breathless. Stunned. At fourteen she'd been gangling and coarse, trekking mud and antagonism into every room if given half the chance. Never rude, but she'd known herself. Held her decisions with pride. The past few months had changed that perception. He would always have the memories of her as the child she'd been, but now he had to see the woman she was too. The softened-out edges and the perfume. The determination she applied to every part of her life, whether it was at the dojo or exams or finding her way back to the Sohma's. Through it all, _whichever_ form of her he met, Hatori found himself offering promises of honesty and protection that he'd never been able to keep. Not if the bruises she bore were anything to go by.

Consumed by his thoughts and the calming edge of her voice as she engaged with Shigure and Ayame, Hatori let his mind wander. Seconds rolled into minutes, minutes to hours and through it all he found his eyes kept coming back to her. A glance here. Something more lingering there. He'd contributed when asked, but the more they all drank the less logical the conversation grew. In those conditions, it was easy to allow himself time to think. Easier still to trace the curve of her smile with his eyes. The long slim reach of her arms as she topped up drinks and brushed her fingers against his.

The clatter of a cup made him jump, Rika's voice low and strained.

"What did you say?" Hatori cursed himself for not paying attention, for allowing himself to relax so completely. Shigure had a sly look creeping across his face, one eyebrow hitched upwards at her. In a fight of wits, Hatori knew where his money would go and it only made him more determined to reach across the table to where Rika sat and guide her away from whatever was about to come next.

"I _said_, rumour has it that Ren has been seen with a private guest. You wouldn't happen to know about that _would you_?" That Shigure even said the name of Akito's mother was a faux pas, let alone to saying it to Rika. Quickly following that nugget of awareness was something else. Her reaction was _wrong_. Too hesitant. Guilty.

Realisation hit the man like falling bricks, things crashing into place with violent clarity between the haze of the alcohol.

The times he'd seen her figure on the estate but convinced himself otherwise. Her increasing knowledge of the Sohma customs and rules. Things he'd thought she was recollecting but -

"So, it was true then? You _were_ all laughing at me," Rika's gaze twisted from the two men opposite her to Hatori, violence curling her mouth and below it – pain. Incomprehensible, wrenching _pain_. He cringed backwards from it. "Laughing at my attempts to fit in when I could _never_ – when all I would ever be is a _bastard_."

Her riposte changed the tone of the room, the smallest ripples spreading outwards and swallowing their amusement like a black hole. As quickly as it shifted, it snapped back with uproarious laughter from Shigure and Ayame, both men buckling over the table as they were brought almost to tears. The whiplash of it sent Hatori reeling, never mind what Rika herself felt. It was the sight of her standing with clenched fists that brought his anger back to simmering point.

"Enough!" His hand came down on the table hard enough to cause the timber to creak and he swore under his breath as Rika flinched.

"Temper _temper," _Ayame crooned, at the same time Shigure made a show of studying the woodwork to check for damage and make silly comments under his breath, the tail end of which Hatori heard - _at least it's not my one this time. _

He regretted doing it as soon as it had happened but what had inspired it had been feral in his chest. A hint of betrayal mixed with compassion for how the young woman trembled where she stood, body fighting every urge to flee or weep so that all that was left was the anger she'd spat at them. He wanted to talk her down, to pull her body against his as he had when they were children. Until he heard the softness come back into her breathing and her body calm. He wanted it desperately. So much so that he knew it wasn't just the urge to protect her driving it alone but the memory of Shigure and Ayame's teasing earlier that evening, adding a sliver of _what if_ that'd he'd not let his mind linger on for more than a brief second before tonight. A sliver that drowned out the betrayal in his chest at the thought of her going to _Ren_ of all people for answers.

He was drunk. So terribly _terribly_ drunk.

"How long have you been -" That was all he managed to ask before Rika turned on him.

"Why shouldn't I?" She was on the defensive to hide her anguish and Hatori smarted at the glare thrown his way, "She was the only one telling me anything!"

"That's not true, we -" Shigure's voice faltered as the look was turned on him.

"Kept discussing me behind my back? Discussing _my_ life and _my_ history and not telling me why I only remember fragments, why I was taken away?! Not telling me that all my attempts to fit in were always going to be _useless._"

"There are better ways than _Ren_!"

"Like what? Expecting _any_ of you to suddenly clue me in?"

"Ren _lies_ Rika. That's what she does. She twists the truth into fiction just to hurt people. How much has she told you? _What_ has she told you?" Hatori struggled to keep the desperation from his voice, knowing he was too drunk for this. Ayame and Shigure were caught between disbelief and mania, both shaking their heads behind Rika's back. The calm air he tried to project seemed to offer some effect, Rika's shoulders drooping downwards. Her eyes filling with moisture.

"She told me -," Her hands gestured wildly, jaw ticking from the pressure under her clenched teeth, "_Akira -"_

"Let me guess," Ayame interjected, "Akira and your mother are your true parents." Rika nodded; eyes glossy. She was drunk too, Hatori realised, and clinging feebly to her self-control. It had been Ren who chose to pierce her with those half-truths. To mar the pale skin on Rika's neck with violence. He wanted to kill that woman. Maybe that was why he couldn't get the words past his own throat to explain it to Rika. If he spoke it would come out in a scream of unchecked rage.

"You're an illegitimate heir, Akito's bastard half-sister. The _unwanted_ one." Hatori tried to kick out at Shigure's shin but was unsuccessful judging from the look he received in return, "We've all heard it. It doesn't make it true."

Some of the fire wilted out of Rika, and she sank back down to her knees.

"Then what _is_?"

"Your mother and father _loved_ you. They married and gave birth to you by choice." Ayame had taken the lead on the honesty. Hatori nodded along, reaching forward to capture her hand without meaning to. He felt her respond to his touch just like she had when she was younger. Moving along the edge of the table so she could curl herself against his chest. Hatori obliged. Drawing his own calm from the feel of her skin under his palms.

"Why would she say it then? What - could she possibly gain from telling me that?"

"Rika, you are not and never were an illegitimate child but -," Hatori's head snapped upwards, wanting to tell Aya to stop, to slow down. He knew that if he did then they'd lose whatever trust she'd tentatively placed back in their hands. He captured his tongue between his teeth instead, sharp enough to draw blood, "Your mother _was_. Kimiko was the daughter of the previous tiger Zodiac, but she wasn't conceived with his partner. It was Akira's mother -," Hatori pulled her closer to him, feeling how unsteady she was beneath his touch.

"Ren _detested_ that Akira loved your mother. She refused to allow a bastard take pride of place in the household after their marriage, but there was nothing she could do to stop Akira choosing to spend time with his sister without imploding her own relationship. He was the one who put all the kids in your mothers' hands. Akira believed she could change the perception of things like that …" Hatori knew the tale but listened as Ayame spun it with grace. How Akira had loved his sister as if she _were_ a product of his parents' marriage, too kind to do anything else. So strong was his persistence in making her part of the household that she had been placed in charge of all the Sohma kids, providing their elementary education - particularly those from the Zodiac's. He saw endless goodness in his sister and hoped she could pass it along.

Kimiko didn't possess the bond of the god, but she _was_ adored and some had even suggested that she might take over as head when Akira's health had begun to wane. Then Ren had gotten pregnant and pulled her stunt with bullying everyone into raising Akito the way she demanded. Kimi had argued with, _begged,_ Akira to see sense but when she too had become pregnant with her own child - Ren had lost all sense of logic.

Rika's birth resulting in a strained Zodiac bond had made everything worse. After Akira died, the truth was moulded by Ren, and Ren alone. Ren, who had been filling Akito's head with nonsense on every facet of Rika's life. She was a bastard. She wanted to steal the Zodiac's. She had tried to steal Akira. She would take the role as head of the family. It didn't matter how often people refuted it, by the time they'd been able to try make Akito realise the truth it was simply too late. Hatori had learned most of the information in pieces, the full extent of it not being made clear until he himself was in his teens. Back then, it had rattled him. He couldn't begin to comprehend how Rika felt now. From the way she'd curled an arm around his, Hatori suspected _vulnerable_ was pretty high on the list.

"Do you believe us now?" Shigure's voice ripped apart the silence and Hatori felt her nod. "And understand why we have been so careful about telling you all this?"

Rika said that she did. Somehow, Hatori suspected that that wouldn't be the last of it but for now it would have to be enough. He leaned forward, trying to see what she was carrying in her expression.

"Are you okay?"

"Look at him, _all concerned_." He wasn't sure which of them said it but there was something in the humour that shattered the residual tension and Rika leaned away from him again to snag the sake once more. Her face had shuttered. Hatori wanted to smack the two idiots for opening their mouths.

"You two need to drink more and shut up." Rika filled up all the cups, twisting to place one into his hands. "You too. No one chickens out here." A finger tipped the cup towards his mouth and she raised her own.

"To truth."

When they'd finished their drinks, Shigure and Ayame stood unsteadily and said their goodbyes, mercifully, devoid of any further insinuation. Their good moods had been vanquished once again by the invisible presence of Ren Sohma. Hatori had never hated someone as much as he suspected he did that woman. Shutting the door, his hands rested against the frame while he took a breath.

Rika had begun to clean the room in silence, gathering glasses and straightening out cushions. The normality of it had Hatori's already frayed patience crumbling. Turning to face her the man straightened up.

"Why did you go to her and not me?"

It sounded juvenile to his own ears but his wince was more for how she flinched at his voice, tugging the blanket she held against her chest.

"I needed someone impartial," He opened his mouth to protest and quieted when she raised a hand, "I didn't understand what the bond had to do with me. I still barely do, but I needed answers from someone who wasn't going to fudge the truth to protect me."

Hatori's hand reached for the door. Missed. It landed on the second try.

"I don't -"

"Yes. You do."

He wasn't sure if the sway of her body was because she'd drank too much, or _he_ had. It made it hard to counteract her and harder still to formulate the words that could be used to do so.

"Sometimes I think you look at me and only see that scared kid -" Her voice was soft but riddled with tension. Rika was close enough that he could see the red rim to her eyes and the blown-out shadows of her irises. The soft red curve of her mouth. "You've spent all this time protecting me instead of giving me a choice. I believed her because she gave me more than you did."

Hatori felt the bob of his throat as he swallowed, holding fast to the door for support.

"I almost believed you all hated me. That you spoke about me behind my back because of that _lie_," Her eyes had filled with moisture again and the man could only stare, "I'm trying to be your _friend_. To find who I was then. I don't need a protector Hari. I need –"

"_You need_?"

"I need you to _see_ _me_. To trust me not to crumple at every hurdle."

"I do -,"

"Stop it!" Rika's voice rose. "Stop _lying_ to yourself. To _me_."

The blanket was shoved unceremoniously into his arms and Hatori didn't need to hear the sharp thud of the doorway to know he'd misstepped. Closing his eyes, he swore under his breath and turned out the lights.


	26. Chapter 26

Laying down to sleep made his head spin uncomfortably so Hatori paced his own bedroom back and forth, willing the alcohol from his system and trying to dissect out his feelings on the night that had just taken place. Back and forth he walked, firstly denying that there was any truth to Rika's claim. Slowly acknowledging that _maybe_ there was an inkling of it.

The need to protect her had always been there. From the very first time she'd been in that clinic bed, skin illuminated with hues of green, purple, yellow and black. He'd rediscovered it after the car crash. The night he'd dropped all his groceries to find her wheezing mid-panic attack in his hallway. Hatori's life the past year had been built around protecting her. From Akito. From her memories. _From himself_.

A light illuminated the hallway. He went still, glad his own bedside lamp had been switched off and wouldn't show that he was still up beneath the doorway. The light vanished as quick as it had come but it wasn't enough to hide the soft footfalls by his door nor obscure the shadowed outline of the woman they belonged to. Abandoning the trouble he was having unbuttoning his own damn shirt, Hatori let curiosity guide him instead.

He found her in the small attic, body leaning against the windowsill. She'd changed into a t-shirt stolen from Haru during her last visit, the fabric too long and hanging to mid-thigh. Its obvious origin was highlighted by the heavy metal band name repeated across the fabric. A pair of shorts made him think she ought to have dressed warmer. It certainly didn't help keep his drunken thoughts in place. Neither did the detail that over it all was his suit jacket from earlier in the evening, tucked tight at her waist where her arms cinched it in place. Her head rested in her chin. One bare ankle hooked over the other. As he dragged his gaze back upwards Hatori found himself granting her the second look she'd asked for. Noting the long stretch of her limbs. The gentle curve of her hip.

He wanted to claim it was only Shigure's words tonight that incited it but he knew better. He'd been observing her for months, filing away the parts of her that captured his attention most. Waiting for something. A rebuff. An invitation. He cleared his throat and stepped onto the attic floor. He had to say something witty. Calming. Good.

"I'm sure you could've found something warmer to wear than that."

_That wasn't witty. _

She started at his voice, turning quickly but clumsily, the effects of the alcohol still in play. The earlier taut edge was gone but her eyes were wide with disbelief.

"I thought you were asleep." .

"Not quite yet." He closed the space between them in a few strides then turned. Considered her. "What are you doing up here?"

"You're meant to watch the sunrise, right? To make a wish for the new year." Something in her face made him dubious about her answer.

"Do you do that every year?"

"No," She admitted, mouth twisting into a bashful grin, "Lying down made my head spin too much so figured I could wish for that to stop instead." He chuckled, following the line of her gaze out past the Sohma houses and to the city below. They wouldn't see much from this angle, but she'd at least spot the first traces of light. Perhaps that could be enough for a wish.

They stood in companionable silence, accusations and tensions of the evening having washed away between the alcohol and the approaching dawn. Alone like this, they always found their way back towards comfort. He'd come to recognise it when she stayed with him. The way he could work in comfort just by hearing the soft noises of her presence in the same room. Her breath. The scratch of a pen. Pages turning. A quiet sigh. He'd come to find his own isolation unbearable at times, and with Shigure and Ayame's suggestions still hanging around his mind the man had to wonder why exactly that was. How had he gone from comfortable independence to listening, waiting for any sign that she was going to show up at his door.

Rika shifted aside to allow him to a better view but tonight, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. She'd let her hair loose, blonde strands trailing over his jacket. In one or two places he could see where some had fallen free and been captured by the fabric to remind him of her presence later.

When he spoke, it was cautiously.

"I don't mean to belittle your decisions." Rika turned back to him, startled.

"I never said you did."

"But the protecting –"

"I didn't mean you do it maliciously Hatori." He heard her swallow, followed the line of her gaze back out the window. _Hatori_. She'd called him that all evening. Not Hari. He missed the Hari. "Sometimes, it just seems like you think you're still with whatever version of me I was back then instead of –"

"The adult you?" She nodded.

"I do see you," He hedged it past her derisive snort, "I _do_. All that you're accomplishing. You've survived. If I've tried to protect you, it's because seeing you hurt _terrifies me_."

"But if you try to make me docile -," It was his turn to laugh and she glared at him for it, "If you try to make me count only on _you_ then I'll never be able to be _me_. I'll never be able to ask for what _I _want."

There was merit to what she was saying (even as amplified as the dramatics were), just as he knew he had a point too. They were having to relearn from one another about where the lines were. About what they gained from this connection. It was easy to try force her hand into becoming the girl she had been because that girl – for all her fire and fury – was still a kid. A kid who had looked to him for guidance and comfort. In all his desperation to keep his mind from wandering where he hadn't dared to go, he'd never stopped to realise that maybe _that_ wasn't the right thing to do either. Even without all her memories back, Rika had fallen into step with that rhythm, _his rhythm_, because she was looking to _him_ for answers. He'd not considered that maybe the answers he'd been giving her had been _meant_ to guide her to that path. That she had been rebelling against it in her own way, trying not to hurt him in the process. Why else would she have kept the meetings with Ren from him?

"Okay," He had to focus on keeping his thoughts straight as he bowed his head to meet her eyes fully. "Then what _do_ you want? From me."

She seemed taken aback by his bluntness, colour rising in her cheeks. He waited a minute in silence, watching the way her mouth opened and shut in silence before deciding not to prolong further discomfort. Hatori abruptly switched tack.

"There were a whole bunch of better options," Hatori tugged at the lapel to indicate what he was speaking about, "Why this one?"

Rika turned away, cheekbones, eyes and mouth illuminated by the various fading lights of the city below. Her words had brought the doorway he'd been holding his feelings behind crashing down, and this time he let himself look without shame. He wanted to trace his fingertips over the small patches of red that lingered from his first question, to map how and where she felt things like fear and anger and _love_.

He curled his hands to fists instead. Returned them to his side.

"I wanted to feel like you were here." Her returned frankness threw him, Hatori managing a half-hearted noise that might have sounded like an invitation for her to explain. "Like earlier. When you held me. I wanted to feel like that."

"To make your wish?" Quite without meaning to, his fingertips reached for her and tangled in a lock of her hair. He marvelled silently at the softness of it. Moving it disrupted the scent of her shampoo, vanilla and sandalwood. Beneath those, the sake lingered on her breath.

"I feel -," She looked away but didn't move, her eyes closing in a way that reminded him of a cat. Slow. Appraising. _Trusting_. How did she still trust him after tonight? How did he trust _her_? He swallowed deeply, knowing he should step away. Give her time to think. To have space to puzzle out what she wanted from him.

And yet.

_And yet_.

Shigure and Ayame had been poking fun. Stirring the pot of something he'd not dared consider with any real intention. Opening that door while pouring alcohol down his throat had sent his mind reeling through possibilities. Of his hands on her skin. Of her curled against his chest. All of it. He wanted _all_ of it. Except - None of it mattered if _she_ didn't want it too.

"You _feel_ -," He prompted her. Curious. Addled.

_This is wrong. This is wrong_. _No – _

_This is different_.

_And I want it anyways._

"I feel safe with you." His heart stuttered. "Even though you keep secrets," Faltered, " I don't want you to keep secrets anymore. I don't want you hiding things because you're trying to protect me. I want you to let me choose what I can handle. That's what I want."

What was another promise to this girl? This _woman_.

He'd already given her everything else.

"Okay."

"And I wish for that too."

He didn't dare say that saying a wish out loud meant it wouldn't come true. Hatori liked to think himself practical. Logical. In spite of all the facets of his life that demanded otherwise. If he made her this promise, then he'd keep it. He no longer had a claim to being young. Naive. _Easily manipulated. _

Standing there, Hatori realised he'd already made a wish for himself. At twenty, he'd gifted her with a means to come back as he'd picked through her memories. Did it make him cruel? _Deceitful_? Foolish? How did he tell her that he'd always had a little sliver of _hope_ that someday she would be with them? Part of their circle. _Accepted_. That he'd been thinking maybe it could be enough that _he_ accepted her for things to work out. That he'd realised it wouldn't be enough. Rika deserved everything. Not the facets he selfishly thought he could offer.

She'd leaned into him again and the feelings it ignited were overwhelming. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, pulse beating rapidly beneath her fingertips. Holding him in place. Her chest to his. He'd never had this with his mother. With Kana. _With anyone_. Was _that_ the only reason he'd wished her back. To _hold her_?

_No_.

"Anything else?" He whispered it. Watched the way her irises darkened and felt the spasm of her fingertips on his skin.

"I want –"

"_Yes?_"

He knew it in the instant his hand found a spot on her cheek, fingers splayed against her skin. She was wide eyed and dark lashed, still very _very_ drunk.

_He_ was still drunk.

"_You_."

The heady exhale of her word made it all the easier to stumble over the precipice. To dip his head with the ghost of a touch. To press a chaste kiss to her nose. She shifted her head when he moved so the second landed at the edge of her mouth. Rika's body went still under his touch for a beat as she decided. Hatori was too close to step away now, but he was smart enough to respect the moment of hesitation he could recognise in her. His anticipation rippled through him like an electric current, man willing her to choose before he lost all sense of himself altogether.

Her chin shifted. His breath hitched. Her nose brushed his.

Then…

_Then…_

Her mouth found his in a kiss. And another. _And another_. The sky shifted from purple to rose red and he was dazzled by her, all sunlight and glow with her hands buried in his shirt and her sigh on his lips. Kissing her was feverish. A _dream_. He'd imagined how it might feel to fall in love again, and it didn't even come close to this.

Rika was something solid under his hands. Grounding him as much as she alighted every nerve in his body, the man struggling to pace himself. To savour each press of her lips as they found the curve of his jaw. Fluttered over his closed eyelids. Marked the slope of his neck. Her laughter when their noses bumped. How she slid her hand over his hip and pulled him closer. He hadn't kissed, or _been_ kissed, like this in years and all he could think was _how did I survive it? _

Each touch was another fracturing block of ice beneath his ribcage, meltwater washed away in the heat of a sudden sun.

By the time the colours shifted to blue he had one hand flattened against the wall of the attic and the other buried in her hair. His mouth was bruised, he was breathless and still, he sought more. He kissed her until his head spun and his knees weakened and it was the only thing that made sense in the world.

When she exhaled his name, he was home. Safe. _Loved_.

Oh.

_Oh. _

He loved her. _He loved her_.

A car alarm echoing through the open window had him coming to his senses. Pulling out of her reach. He could see the colour on her skin and follow the trail of his mouth on the patches that trailed down her neck. Measure how deeply she was breathing. She looked as dazed and stupidly content as he felt, Hatori still resting one forearm against the wall for support, hand in a curled fist behind her head.

He could still feel her touch where she'd trailed her fingertips over his chest. Cold. _Electric_.

"We should go to bed." He flushed at her startled look. Amended himself before the darkness of her irises could sway him otherwise. "_Separately_." Saying it went against the screaming in his gut, the part of him that wanted to follow her, _lead her_, further down this path. A path that returned his suit jacket to his floor. That added a too big shirt and those wretchedly attractive shorts.

Instead he helped her close the button on his jacket, seal up the window. Walked her back to her own claimed room and the little clinic bed.

"Hari," He turned in the hallway with difficulty, knowing if he looked back - leaving her would be all the harder, "Thank you. That was - _nice_." Nice was an understatement he thought, but if it had to be summarised in one word what would he choose?

Addictive.

Desperate.

_Everything_.

"It was." Treading back to his room, the man felt the room spin. Lurch. His futon felt too big. Too empty. The warmth of her was still on his hands. On his mouth. He tossed and turned for hours before sleep finally claimed him and, by the time he woke the next day, Rika was gone, his head felt as though something had died in it and below that – he felt like he'd had a remarkably pleasant dream.


	27. Chapter 27

The morning after New Year's had Rika waking with a mouth full of cotton and discomfort in her neck. Events of the night before were fuzzy at best, downright baffling at worst. Stealing out of Hatori's, she took care to leave the suit jacket she'd been wearing in the attic hanging neatly on the coat rack. To wind her scarf wound carefully around her throat. Rounding the corner to the gates she stumbled across Shigure, the man looking about as steady as she was. In fact, he was leaning heavily against the wall.

"What was in that sake?" She asked him after a beat and linking an arm into his to steady them both, the pair fell into step beside one another for their shared route home.

"Regrets." Rika laughed. Grimaced at the pain that flared. Traffic, both vehicular and foot was mercifully quiet in the wake of new year's. "Did you and Hatori make nice?"

Colour flooded her cheeks as the previous evening came back to her. Warm skin. Roaming hands. Her lips parted in a slow sigh.

"Of a sort."

Shigure's gaze flickered towards her, something furtive in his expression. Rika turned her own head away as though it could hide the flush of her skin. Her stumbling heartbeat. They walked in silence; Rika unsure what she preferred. Shigure's scrutiny, or the vastly inappropriate suggestions of the night before.

"He cares about you."

"You made that abundantly clear last night." Her quip was waved off.

"Just -," Shigure had to pause mid step as they climbed the last leg of their journey, a hand reaching forward as he bowed his weight against his nausea. Rika, for all that she wanted an answer, could commiserate. The woman desperately needed a shower. To sleep more than the staggered hour she had claimed in that old clinic bed, mind whirring and the warmth of Hatori still on her lips.

The man reached out, fingers grabbing at her elbow.

"Just don't hurt him. We're being honest with you Rika, and will continue to be because we care about you but _he_ – he's got more at stake here than any of us and until you remember everything –"

Rika could fill in the blank. She'd spent the evening smarting over Hatori protecting her, but had she ever considered how to protect _him_? Swept up in the heady mix of alcohol and relief the night before, Rika had allowed herself to want him. Convinced herself he wanted her too.

"Until I know what I was," _Who_ she was, "I can't comprehend how serious it is."

Shigure nodded, the movement evidently too quick for his queasy stomach. Green tinted his cheeks and Rika leaned back. As much as she'd drank, Shigure had had more. That said, if _he_ threw up, she wouldn't be far behind him. A clatter ahead distracted her from arguing the point with him, Kyo appearing on the top of the stairs.

"What the hell happened to you two?"

"_Ayame_." It was uttered in unison, both laughing at the realisation and then wincing hard against their complaining bodies.

"I'm not even going to ask." Kyo reached out possessively and tucked Rika against him. Just as quickly, he pushed her back. "Hell! You reek. What did you do?"

"I thought you weren't going to ask?" He scoffed at her. Shoved her unceremoniously through the front door. Rika waved off his brusque attitude, trying not to laugh at the teen's grandstanding. She could see it for what it was. _Concern_. Fair really, given she'd disappeared from Kazuma's house with a half-hearted excuse. That he wasn't yelling was a mercy.

"Tohru was worried about you. Go tell her you're back. And you," He turned on Shigure who whimpered and made a feeble complaint about _noise_, "You reek even worse. I'm going to the dojo."

Rika was halfway up the stairs by the time Shigure followed her into the house, his voice echoing after her.

"Just, consider it."

* * *

"The damage doesn't look too extensive." Hatori's hands were against her neck and Rika's attention was in fragments. Each touch reminded her of that night and from the more tentative edge of his examination – Rika suspected it made him recollect it too.

"She didn't look strong enough to leave bruises like that." Turning her head, Rika caught her own reflection in the mirror nearby. "Not sure all of them are hers either." She trailed her thumb against a more circular bruise that traced her shoulder and Hatori's eyes followed the motion.

"Ren was always full of surprises."

Without the alcohol flooding her system, Rika was more careful. Unsure. Hatori seemed to be taking his cues from her, which, flattering as it was, made her twice as nervous.

While Rika had gotten her own external physician months ago, explaining the bruises around her neck to someone who didn't comprehend the full story was too risky. Not to mention the questions that would be raised regarding her living situation. Which had left her with one option and he was currently busying himself with files on his desk.

Rika pulled her scarf back around her shoulders, twisting her head side to side as she tested the ache of the bruised muscles.

"How long do you think the marks will last?"

"The ones from Ren or -?" Rika snorted, fingers brushing along the edge of her jaw. Her hand reached out to tug the man back to her, grip loose in his white coat. He sighed and looked back towards her. "A week or so. The deeper ones might take longer. Have the others asked questions?"

"I've been keeping the skin covered. Makeup works wonders."

She kept him close by, sensing the agitation he was working to hide. Since New Year's, Rika had been trying to figure out where they went now that they had crossed a line. There were aspects too hard to fathom. Shigure's warning. The age differences. The gap in her memories.

Swallowing Rika managed to burst out with –

"About the other night – " in the same instant that Hatori said,

"About New Year's –"

They shared sheepish grins, woman releasing his sleeve and waving a hand towards him to continue. She hadn't even figured out _what_ to say yet. With any luck, Hatori had greater ability to explain himself.

"Rika," He spoke her name so tenderly that she had a moment of worry he was going to say it was all some mistake. Her heart picked up pace. "I think maybe we need to take a minute. To consider -," She watched his hands as they stretched outward and then curled back into fists.

"To _consider_…?"

"You're still in school. There's – there's _years_ of experiences between us. You haven't even gotten your memories back. A few months ago, I was your physician! Those aren't even accounting for all the other complications - " Hatori turned away, knuckles white from the effort of getting his words out in a way that wasn't designed to hurt her. Most of them had come out in such a rush she needed a second to process them all. When she had, Rika reached back to claim his wrist.

"It's okay. I understand." It had been a kiss. A _long_ kiss. Heated. Intense. That wasn't the point however. "There's a power disparity. Right now, _this_," She gestured to the small space between them, "This is a thing that will make one of us uncomfortable while we have doubts. That will cause more trouble than we're already in. I – you – _we_ need to find a way that makes it feel like something achievable for both of us."

Hatori's expression relaxed a fraction, his hand lifting to tuck hair behind her ear as he nodded agreement. Rika pressed a hand to his chest to indicate she wasn't yet done.

"Can you promise me, when I come to you – you _will_ restore my memories. All of them. Not yet. I'm not ready yet but when I am, will you?" He met her eye directly, reticence still present but she could see the way something else overpowered it. He'd sworn to stop protecting her from things. To let her fight her own battles. The battle he had internally to agree to those conditions was visible and painful but when he opened his mouth what came out was -

"I promise."

"And we can stay friends?"

"Of course."

Rika closed her eyes. Let the relief settle all the way to her toes. She'd wanted him to kiss her that night. Wanted to kiss him again. She _also_ wanted to know that whatever they decided to do going forward it was a shared agreement. Hari's thumb trailed her cheekbone and when she looked his way the tumultuous expression was back. She waited as patiently as she could for him to speak.

"I just want to say – to ask you – not to misunderstand my reservations for regret. The other night. I _wanted_ that. Even drunk, I was clear headed enough to know that much. It's just - in a month or so, you'll know about university. A year. In a year, can we re-evaluate?"

A year. A year seemed fair. Long. _Impossibly_ long - but fair. He was right. She had her exams to sit. News to break to Kyo if she passed them. By the time all those things were done even _with_ a delayed matriculation she would probably have no freedom to consider – _whatever this was_. A year. She tested her agreement on her tongue.

"I can do a year." Her head leaned into the touch of his palm, hand lifting to hold him in place. "And I wanted it too. I wouldn't have said so if I didn't. I _liked_ it. I said nice but it was more than that Hari. It felt right and safe and just having you there, feeling you against me. I felt like I was on fire from the inside out and when you _kissed my neck_ -," Her words turned breathy at the recollection, heat licking her stomach and creeping its way over her body. Reminding her of his mouth on hers. Of how easy she slotted against him. The tingle as his hands swept through her hair, unmaking her a little at a time until at that was left was the weight and feel of his body over what little was left of her own.

Hatori's head dropped against hers with a quiet groan, pulling her back to the present.

His gulp was the loudest thing in the room and it took immense effort for her not to glance to his mouth. To let him linger within touching distance and _not touch_.

"Why do I feel you're about to make the next year the longest I've ever lived?" Hatori's voice was rough edged and enticing, Rika turning her head to press her lips to the inside of his wrist before releasing him. Pulling her hands back enough that she wasn't playing cruel or coy. As much as the temptation was there to do so.

"Common sense. History. _Clairvoyance._" They shared strained laughter at her quip. Hatori stepped away. "We can make it our new resolutions. Self-discipline."

He ran a hand through his hair, dishevelling it in a way that was too enticing to be allowed. Rika crossed her legs against the tall stool she sat on.

"I don't know which one is going to be more difficult. _That_ or the cigarettes I already promised to give up." He monotoned it, shaking his head a final time and retreated to his desk. Scribbled a note on a piece of paper and returned to her.

"This is a cream to help with the bruising, now for the sake of my sanity _please_ go." She grinned widely, Rika standing and tucking the note into the pocket of her skirt. Moved to the door.

"Goodbye, _Hari_." She placed an exaggerated emphasis on his name that earned her a growl and the woman ducked away from his glare and echoing amused shout.

"Get _out_."

She left laughter in her wake and if she wasn't mistaken, she heard his too.

* * *

"Shush," Rika hissed it at the two boys on the doorstep, laughing in spite of herself at their disarray, "Hatori's asleep." That seemed to trip Momiji up in his excitement, fair eyebrows disappearing into the mop of blonde hair atop his head.

"Hari's _sleeping?"_ She nodded confirmation, stepping back to usher them both towards Hatori's office rather than his living room.

"He was reading and fell asleep." Truthfully, it had taken her by surprise too. The man seldom showed weakness or wholly relaxed, but she'd shoved a book into his hand and nature had taken over. Guilt prickled in her stomach, a reminder that since her return he'd been not only juggling his normal clinic work but helping her study too.

That was bound to take its toll eventually.

"He's lucky he has you to look out for him." Rika's eyes slid to Haru, cheeks turning pink. Then white.

"Your _arm! Haru!"_ The teen waved it off.

"Only a scratch." Logic begged to differ judging by the blood that had already seeped into Haru's shirt sleeve. Shaking her head, Rika padded into the small clinic room she'd been occupying to study and grabbed one of Hatori's medical bags. She wasn't a physician, but while the man rested, she could surely do _something_ to help.

"What even happened?" She almost didn't want to know judging by the look on Momiji's face. Glee. It was sheer and utter _glee_.

"Haru went dark at the dojo and told Kyo that Tohru's bum looked nice in her swimsuit." A hasty cough was needed to cover up her laughter. The concept of _dark_ Haru had been explained to her after a remarkably odd interaction with the teen that had gone from innocent to perverse in a matter of seconds. Not that he had explained it himself. No, _that_ had been left to Yuki when Kyo started throwing punches.

"And Rin?" She'd known the girl was staying there the last couple weeks, and at the mention of the name Momiji's ridiculous beaming grin grew even wider.

"She told him if he said something like that again, she'd hold him down so Kyo could kick his ass." Another smothered laugh, Rika sending Momiji away to gather some hot water and towels while she helped Haru out of his shirt.

"What did you even hit?" She asked once she had a good look at where the blood had begun, a diagonal stripe across his arm.

"The ground." He answered and she had to resist the urge to smack the back of his head for his brevity. Momiji's reappearance filled in the gaps in the middle of handing over the supplies he'd found.

"A big rock in Kazuma's yard. Kyo looked very apologetic once that happened." Naturally, Rika thought. Kyo had a difficult time fitting in with some of the Sohma's when things were going in his favour. Scarring one of them, even if that someone happened to be Hatsuharu, would not end well.

She cleaned the wound carefully with water to start, grabbing tweezers to extract any traces of gravel from the laceration. He'd been correct, the blood making it look far worse than it was. The cut underneath was shallow and wouldn't require stitches like some of the others she'd seen dished out during martial arts over the years.

"Some strips should be enough to deal with this though Hari might say different. I can wake him -,"

"Strips are fine. Let Hatori rest." Her smile was soft, a nod of agreement shared with Haru. Momiji took up residence in the large chair by the desk, Rika noting how the rabbit no longer had his legs dangling loose. Instead, they sat firm on the floor. Sometimes it was difficult to reconcile the memories she lacked and the stories Ren shared, with the reality. Harder still when she was still picking through which parts of Ren's information had been outright fallacy. At some point in her past, Rika would've thought Momiji a tiny scared child. Now, he was finally starting to look like the young man he was.

Haru too, though the changes were less striking. She'd missed out on the bulk of that transition during her time in Okinawa.

"Rika-" Haru spoke as she tried to extract the little sticky strips from their packet, tongue poking out at the edge with the concentration.

"Uh-uh?"

"You're staying for good this time, right?" The first strip tore under the jolt of her hands, Rika looking up into a remarkably serious face. Haru often strayed towards an airy kindness but right then he faced her head on. Rika swallowed and looked up to see Momiji staring at her as intently.

"If I can -" Rika still didn't know for sure how Akito felt about it all. How _she_ felt about it really. There were large gaps in her memory, things that remained unsaid. Whispers behind doors. Conversations that magically dried up when she entered the room. Less since New Year's, but that was only one step in the right direction. Then, of course, there was _Hatori_. "If I can, I would very much like to remain here. With all of you."

"With Hari too?"

Rika arched a brow but didn't dare look away from the delicate operation of locking Haru's skin into place so that he wouldn't end up with too broad a scar. There was an edge to the addition of the Sohma physician by Momiji that she didn't dare touch. Not when the pair had already formed a tentative agreement to leave aside the more _complicated_ desires between them at New Year's.

"Of course. Hari too."

"Maybe you could move here full time?!" Momiji derailed her thoughts and another strip tore. "Then we'd be next door neighbours."

Laughing it off, Rika prayed that her skin hadn't turned too red at the insinuation. It was bad enough to have Shigure and Ayame creating connections between herself and the doctor. It would be harder still to keep to the agreement of a whole year if quiet expectation started coming from other avenues too.

The door opened and the man himself appeared in the doorway, hair sleep tousled and -

"Hari! Are you wearing _sweatpants_?!"

"Blame Rika for it." He deadpanned. She flushed deeper, noting the way his eyes moved from Hatsuharu to his kit. The bloodied water and towels on the floor.

Haru leaned close.

"I don't think he gets how sleezy that sounds." Rika couldn't help it. She panicked.

"No, _no_ \- it's not. I made him go for a run earlier since he's -," Hari's hand dropped onto her shoulder and she fell quiet. Looking up to his face she recognised the warning in his expression and promptly let go of Haru's arm.

"Let me look at that."

She retreated back to Momiji, arms moving to cover her abdomen. Rika hadn't even meant to be at Hatori's today, she'd been walking from the Dojo and then, just _ended up there_. His previous confession about giving up smoking had felt as good as reason as any to suggest some exercise could do him good.

He'd lasted a mile and a half before bringing down every curse upon her, a litany of words which had been both shocking and immensely satisfying. They'd retired back to his house for lunch whereupon she'd shoved a book in his hands instead and told him to relax. What she hadn't expected was _compliance_. Or how nice his barely used sweatpants hung on his hips. The way his shirt framed his lithe form. More surprising was the smile spreading across his face as he examined Haru's arm.

"You did a good job." Pride flared in her chest but before she could revel in it, she was knocked from her feet by Momiji throwing himself at her, both of them crashing to the floor.

"Our Rika!" He sang, "Almost as wonderful as our Hari! A match made in -"

"Momiji, kindly quiet down." Hatori's voice was curt but from her position under the zodiac rabbit, she could see a pinkness spreading along his neck. A flush that skittered her mind towards a different room of this house. An attic wall. Skin marked by passion and heat. Rather than move from where she lay, Rika forced herself to exhale and relax on the floor, tucking a hand around Momiji's neck.

"You're an idiot." She nuzzled the top of his head affectionately, thrilling in the laughter it elicited. The teen rested an arm over her chest, dropping his head onto it.

"I missed you Ri-Ri."

"You too kid." Which was the truth. Even when she hadn't known them, she had been missing every part of the Sohma family right to her marrow. The laughter. The pain. All of it. It felt foolish and painful to think it but losing her mom and dad had filled something that she hadn't realised was empty. A space in her heart that had only grown and healed over the past year. It wasn't just the three in the room with her now either. It was Tohru. Yuki. Kyo and Kazuma. Uo and Hana. They'd given her all a family when she'd been on the cusp of being utterly alone. That she was a Sohma anyway didn't matter. By inviting her back in, they risked Akito's wrath. Greater struggles with the bond. Yet they'd done it all the same. Hatori most of all.

He might bemoan it. Exercise caution in how she passed her time in the main estate or frayed his struggling self-control. Through all of it, he'd never turned her away. Not once. His door had opened and remained open.

"Are you staying here tonight? Let's have a sleepover!" Rika looked to Hatori, a hopeful glint in her eyes. He had covered over the strips on Haru's arm and while the question seemed to have annoyed him somewhat if the tightening of his shoulders were anything to go by - she was quite sure his entire expression softened when he turned and observed the pair sprawled across his floor.

"_Fine_. Hatsuharu?"

"I've got to go back to Rin." Hatori nodded acceptance, Rika smiling at the black- and white-haired teen as brightly as she could. He was devoted to Rin in a way that transcended words. If she could ever have even a _fraction_ of that kind of love, she thought she might be happy. Her gaze flickered to Hatori and she crushed down the idea quickly. Attraction, _sure_. But _love_?

"I'm going to order out for food while I see Haru out. You two clean up this mess." Hatori stood, a hand run through his hair setting the strands to rights. Rika realised that he'd come looking for her, dressed so casually, not expecting company. Was he annoyed to find that his brief moment of carefree afternoon had been snuffed out so quickly? "I'll also tell Shigure you're staying here this evening. Just in case the others are concerned for you."

Rika grimaced, thinking that conversation over. New Year's had revealed just how Shigure and Ayame viewed her and Hari's time spent together. Adding fuel to the fire, no matter how unintentionally, was sure to be an extra weight in Hatori's shoulders. Not to mention how Kyo had reamed her for not checking in that night either, but he'd at least had the good graces to wait until her hangover had passed.

Momiji rapped a finger against her collar bone once the other two had left, the weight of him oddly comforting where he lay draped across her. Unlike with Hatori, there was no frisson in his touches. No odd hammering of her heart.

Just pure contentment.

"You think he'd mind if I see if Kisa and Hiro can come too?" Rika considered it.

"I don't think so. Though I can't imagine what we can do that will interest all of us?"

"Oh, that one's easy! We're going to watch a movie!" Rika accepted it easily enough. Spending time with the younger cousins, particularly Kisa, would be nice. Rika was still trying to make up for what had happened in the past, even if she didn't recall the exact circumstances. If Hari was bored, he could simply read one of his books or go visit Ayame instead. "Rika?"

She glanced up to see Momiji's wide eyes studying her, a soft smile on his lips.

"I don't think Hari can say no to you." She laughed; the reaction so visceral she almost knocked the teen from her body.

"You didn't hear him earlier! I thought he'd have murdered me when we got back." If he'd had the energy.

"Nah," Momiji moved off of her, extending a palm to pull her up so they could start cleaning up the room, "Somehow, I don't think he would have."

_And that_, she thought, _is more reason to wait. _For all Momiji joked, Rika had to wonder. The bond, the _connection_ the others felt – was that the only reason they had come together? He'd told her she was like a Zodiac yet something _different,_ but even if she wasn't a normal Zodiac, had there been some truth in Ren's words for what had made Akito drive her away? Rika had asked Hatori once if he had to do everything she asked of him and he'd laughed it off, but now she found herself coming back to it.

Was the bond physical? Buried so deep that someone found themselves following its guidance before even having time to think?

And if so –

Were the things she wanted with Hari because of _that_ and nothing more?

Sighing, Rika pushed the worries away. These were problems for another day. For now, they would simply have to wait.


	28. Chapter 28

Spring was barely a whisper on the wind, the weather chilled and unrelenting as Rika picked her way through other students on the roof of the school to find Uotani. Tohru and Hana had some lunchtime tutoring to attend which left the two blondes with each other for company. In anticipation, Rika had offered to make the lunches with a second agenda in mind. There were things she felt more comfortable asking of Uo than either Tohru or Hana, and this question in particular had definite relevance.

Handing over the bento box she'd made, Uo made a small noise of content when she opened it to find a warm curry.

"I heated them up before coming up here. Figured they'll keep out the wind chill."

"You're a _saint_." Laughing, she took a seat beside her friend and kicked her legs out ahead of her. The thick winter coat on her frame kept out the worst of the weather but it was the katsu that warmed her up from the inside. The pair ate in silence for a little while, breaking it only to make inane comments about their morning's classes or the current baffling state of the Kyo and Tohru budding love affair.

"Speaking of _love_," Rika began, "I've been thinking…"

"That's always a dangerous statement, though I did notice you thinking. You're a _very_ loud thinker." Rika chucked a napkin at the other girl, earning herself a laugh. Unless she was violently broadcasting her thoughts while she mulled things over, there was no such _thing_ as a loud thinker as far as Rika believed. For both Hatori and Uo to say it however, rankled her.

"_Anyways_. It's sort of about you and Kureno. And sort of not."

"That's illuminating. What's been on your mind weirdo."

"If, in the future, things between you and Kureno were able to happen – would you ever worry about the age gap?"

Uo's mouth screwed up as she considered it. That her friend was able to take the question without a hunted look in her eye was somewhat of a relief. The last time his name had come up Rika thought she would crumble from the sense of agonised grief in the room. Either it was time had healed or simply that Uo liked to live in the circle of _what if _but regardless, Rika was pleased she wasn't being laughed off or told to go screw herself.

"He's older. Probably with a lot of experiences I don't have. So, I mean, of course age would play a factor in it, but Kureno is – he was _so_ like Tohru. I can't even begin to imagine a world where he would use that experience against me. Plus, I have experiences he doesn't too. I'm more world aware than he is. I think long term, that would balance us out."

"What if –" Rika worried her lip anxiously, "What if you'd known him since you were a kid? With that age gap, would it not just be some kind of power play?"

Uo gave her an analytical stare.

"What's this about?"

"I'm just curious." Rika countered. "Can't I be curious?" Uo didn't break eye contact but she did shrug.

"I mean, yeah – that's a bit harder to balance. I think it's a problem if one of them was gearing up for a romantic relationship right then. Or if the older one is trying to mould the younger into something that suits them rather than an individual. Age gaps can have bad stuff with them, but they can also create really good relationships. I mean, my mom and dad were high school sweethearts and we all know how that turned out. Then you have Tohru's parents who met while Kyoko was still in school and he was a teaching student but they loved each other and supported one another through everything. Without them, we wouldn't have Tohru. She wouldn't be who she is."

She sent Rika another quizzical look. "Is this about you and the doctor?"

Rika nearly dropped her bento box, turning her head to stare at Uo.

"Why would you say that?" Since New Year's, Rika had been on best behaviour. Sure, she still visited the man more than she probably should have, but she hadn't said anything that might have given the game away. _Right?_

"I saw you guys. A while back." Rika wracked her brain to think of a _when_. Was it a café? A walk? Something else -, "In one of the cafés near my grocery store job. I was passing the window and you two were so serious looking. You had your hand on his and I just – I don't know, it looked _like _something." Uo slid her gaze to the woman. "_Is_ it something?"

Rika's mouth opened and shut blankly, thumb and forefinger pressing against the bridge of her nose.

"I don't know." She replied. _"Maybe_." 'It's complicated' felt like a cop-out of an answer, but it _was_ complicated. There were so many factors to consider. There'd never been a hint of romantic intent at the beginning. It had been a slow rising attraction, one that came about as Rika grew more and more certain of herself. Of her path. As she elevated herself to a level that could, someday, be _equal_ to Hatori. It wasn't yet. Couldn't be yet.

Not while she was in school, and not while she still lacked her memories.

Licking her lips, Rika pulled her coat a little tighter to her body.

"When I'm with him, it's like -," She looked away, "I like solitude. Not completely, obviously, but I like it to study. To think. Recharging now and then. If anyone breaks that, it bugs me, but when _he's_ with me, it's like that little bubble of solitude expands to take him in too without setting anything out of sync. He sits in that bubble without disrupting it. It like – he fits."

Her cheeks were heating up under the intensity of Uo's look and Rika busied herself with clicking the lid back onto her bento box and wiping her hands clean with a second napkin from her pocket. It was far too cold out for her to be blushing so deeply.

"Rika, I say this with affection-" Uo leaned forward and Rika braced herself for what was to come, "You may be in high school for right now, but you're _also_ legally an adult and if you don't sort yourself out and make a move on that man, _someone else will_."

It hadn't been what she'd been expecting and it stuck deeper from the surprise of it.

"You don't think it's just – infatuation?"

"Do _you_?"

"_I don't know_."

"Then maybe it's time you figure it the hell out?"

* * *

Her exam weekend approached quicker than Rika would've liked and she made her way to the centre on her own for fear that a meeting with anyone would unnerve her altogether. Sitting outside the building she flicked absently through her phone, taking in little of what was on the screen.

Her nerves were amped up to eleven and part of it, _a large part of it, _was that she had come to this place alone.

For all her claims to independence, she still craved support. Someone to tell her it was all going to be okay. That she had this. Instead she was trying to convince herself of that truth, staring at the glass doors of the government building with a knot the size of Tokyo tower buried in her stomach.

A _trill_ from her phone drew her gaze downward to highlight an incoming message.

_Sensei Kazuma sends his best for this weekend. Told me to tell you your secret is safe, the Dr. just wished you a small guardian angel on your shoulder. Would've text himself, only he's a useless old man really. You got this kid. Kunimitsu. _

Laughter bubbled up from her chest and what escaped was shaky but genuine, the young woman turning her head up to the sky. So Hatori had ratted her out. That explained _his_ silence. Kazuma in her corner while dealing with Kyo would be invaluable, but it was also comforting. The man had been the first flicker of genuine recognition in her memories of the Sohma's for a reason. He elicited a feeling of direct support, even when she hardly knew how they'd been connected. That feeling coursed through her now, an electric surge that allowed her to set her shoulders. Stand upright.

Whatever happened this weekend, she would survive it.

* * *

By the time the last exam rang out on the Sunday evening, Rika could barely remember her own name let alone how the hell she was to get home. Bag over one shoulder she toyed with the idea of calling Shigure to send Kyo to meet her at the rail station. Considered calling Hatori to collect her.

The wildfire of nerves and anticipation had been stamped down so violently by two days of exams that all she felt was a numb sense of relief. Even that was almost an anti-climax. Sure, she'd sat the damn things but now she had to _wait_ for the results.

Having already contacted the university regarding a deferral, the woman at least had the comfort of not needing to race home to calculate her grades in time for spring acceptances. It was a small respite in a sea of uncertainty and one she wasn't going to dare turn away.

Her feet shuffled their way towards the bench opposite the building, hoping to sit and catch her breath a brief moment before starting the collection of trains and buses back home.

Head bowing between her knees, Rika inhaled sharply. Spring was in the air, cherry blossom petals blowing underfoot and between the gap in her legs. She watched them for a long moment, breathing in deep. Releasing. A noodle vendor down the street was wafting its wares in her direction. Traffic shrieked from the nearest junction. For the first time in months it felt like she could breathe again. Whatever the outcome of her exams, at least she had tried. That had to count for something. Still, logic couldn't undermine the niggle in her chest that told her she _wanted_ this.

Not to leave.

Never that.

She wanted to cradle something that could be her own. To stand on the merit of her own intelligence and _earn _a place beside Hatori. Beside her family. Not only that, to know who she was without the family _and_ with them. Interlinked circles that had existed for longer than even she recalled. A Rika that was formed from her time in Okinawa. The version of her that had existed in Tokyo as a kid. The version of her _now_.

"I hoped I'd find you here." A pair of polished dress shoes materialised beneath her bowed form and Rika looked up to see Hatori, his jacket tossed casually over one arm. He smiled when her eyes met his and he extended a hand. "I was thinking, how would you like some dinner?"

* * *

Rika sighed contentedly, pushing the last of her ramen bowl away from her.

"I'm stuffed. That was spectacular."

"You ate three main dishes," Hatori sounded bewildered and awed in equal measure, "I've never seen anyone but Hatsuharu put away that much food."

"I skipped lunch to get in extra study time before English today. I focus better with a little fasting now and then."

Hatori shook his head at her grin, leaning back in his chair to regard her. Rika had kept the conversation simple during their meal, still somewhat shocked that the man had shown up here at all. More so when he'd insisted on one of the pricier restaurants in their locale, proclaiming they ought to celebrate her completing the first hurdle towards university.

The waitress that arrived cleared the empty dishes and returned with tea. In her contented state, the woman allowed herself to study her companion. Doubtless Kyo would be livid at her cagey disappearances culminating in a whole weekend of her being absent but Rika found it difficult to consider the anger when she was side-lined by quiet awe.

Her gaze trailed Hatori's jaw. The curve of his lips. A shock of dark hair that slipped over his left eye to obscure the pale film that indicated injury. It was easy to get swept up in the beauty of him, especially when each time she fed those thoughts a part of her rose up to sing a silent melody. One that urged her to adore this man. To cherish him. Before they'd kissed, Rika had thought him handsome but it was his mind that intrigued her most even now. That quick wit and careful smile. How he could as easily soothe as injure with a carefully chosen word.

"You're staring." His mouth twisted with bemusement and Rika, finally allowing herself to bask in her small achievement and simply _relax_, smiled back.

"Am I?"

"Quite rudely." He didn't sound put out by it. In fact, he rather seemed to be enjoying himself.

"How _shall_ I atone for such a sin?" She asked, subtly shifting forward. Hatori responded in kind. The edge of his mouth was tugged sideways in an uncharacteristic smirk at the insinuation of her words but for once, he didn't immediately shut her down. Instead his gaze dropped and rose slowly before returning to her face.

"I'll have to think it over." The look he gave her sent heat to her toes and not for the first time since she'd spoken to Uo about this, Rika wondered what she was doing. There was such ease in their words. Their actions. Ease that had been built, not over the last few months, but _years_. That was where the trouble began. How much of this began and ended with the bond? All of it? _Some_? It was clear she had the damn thing by now, but its details still eluded her beyond recognising it as a feeling. An urge.

The comfort that was reaped from Momiji dropping his weight onto hers. How sometimes she felt herself release a tense breath when Kyo returned to a room, despite the fact she hadn't even known she was holding it. The guilt that eased a sliver at a time but still continued to cling to her bones and demand itself felt. In the midst of it all was Hatori. Confusing, handsome, _impossible_ Hatori.

She chose not to press him for what he deemed a suitable atonement, sipping quietly from her warm tea instead. She expected the silence to wear on her, to slip beneath already fragile nerves where he was concerned but instead, she found it electric knowing he was watching her just as intently as she watched him. When her cup was empty, he stood and extended an arm.

"How about we get you home?"

Rika didn't want to admit to her disappointment for cutting the evening short but she took his arm all the same and let him lead her from the restaurant and back towards his car.

They'd barely hit the chilled evening air when a question bubbled up unbidden, spurting from her mouth before she could stall it.

"What does the bond feel like?" Hatori stopped, turning to look at her as if hoping she were joking. Rika's face remained still in its sincerity and the man rubbed at his jaw. His expression became clouded. Torn. After a brief hesitation he diverted from his path to the street opposite and instead led her towards the little green area to their left.

He didn't speak until he'd found a quiet bench under a streetlight, the glow illuminating his face softly. Instead of sharp angles he was all gentle curves. The tilt of his lips. Line of his jaw.

Rika took a seat beside him, watching the way his hands settled on his lap. Danced an agitated beat into the dark fabric of his slacks. Unable to bear his discomfort for long she reached out and laid her own hand over the backs of his and Hatori seemed almost startled by the action. His skin was cool again, a comforting chill against the too warm feeling of her own palms. The question had been too sudden and demanding but somehow the thought of telling him not to worry about it was worse again. She _wanted_ an answer. An understanding. The man seemed to recognise this.

"It's always there. Some of the others say they can tune it out but I've never been able to do that." Rika sat silent, tracking the tick of his jaw as a marker for when she'd pushed him too far for information. At present it was simply taut as his teeth ground quietly together. "When I feel angry it acts as a dampener. A reminder that I owe too much to this family, to _certain_ members to be consumed by anything less than love and generosity. It's a hum in my blood when I'm near anyone of the Zodiac. A comfort. Even if the circumstances of our meeting are riddled with strife or upset, I can sense that I am happier in those moments than when I am apart from them."

There was too much familiarity in his words and Rika stumbled over her follow up question.

"And Kana?" His eyes widened and Rika ploughed uncertainly ahead, "How did you know you were in love with her? How did you separate it?"

She was less sure why she'd asked that question. Love was far more than what this was, _surely_? Infatuation was easy. It could be tied to the bond. Explained by it. Love was infinitely more complicated. Messy. Love demanded things she didn't have a clue how to give.

His head tipped back; the grey of his irises almost black in the lamplight. One of his palms shifted and turned upwards to face hers, the fingers linking between her own.

"Kana snuck up on me. At first it she was just _there_ and then one day she surprised me with something inane. After that, I found myself intrigued by her. On the edge of my seat wondering what she might say next. How she would react. She was gentle and kind and impossibly optimistic. The bond had always been there and I'd loved and hated it in turn, but _she_ showed me how precious such things could be. I woke up one day and I saw her and suddenly I couldn't bear to imagine a life without her there. What I felt for her was the bond turned on its head, a feeling that not only coursed through my veins but into every muscle, bone and cell -" Rika found herself breathless at the explanation and there was something else there too. An envy so green it roared to life in her stomach and filled her with disgust. He deserved more than this life. Indentured to Akito and the Sohma family, he would always be ruled first and foremost by duty.

Hot on the heels of that thought was the numbing worry that _she_ was duty to him. That kissing her, entertaining her - it was some need that the bond told him to be felt rather than genuine longing.

"Rika," Something must have given in her expression and she looked to him when he uttered her name, eyes wide and hurt, "What I felt for Kana doesn't exist anymore. She was spring, but spring is just a season. The guilt that took her away from me, that blame - she could never understand _why_ I forgave Akito. Why I didn't blame anyone but myself for what transpired. She's moved on and found happiness. I -"

Her heart gave a treacherous thud in her chest as he lifted a hand to cup her cheek and Rika leaned into his touch.

She feared the bond. That much was an icy shower down her back and _still_ it couldn't drown out the heat in her chest when he looked at her in such a way. Tipping forward on the bench, Rika got close enough to count the pale freckles on his cheek. See his five o'clock shadow, hair by hair. Everything felt amplified. Tense. She'd spent an evening committing his face to memory, but it was _this_ she wanted to remember most. The way he looked when he answered her next question.

"Do you still love her that way?"

"No."

"Do you -," She couldn't ask it. Love was too much. It was too heavy. _A year_. They'd agreed to that. To figure things out. To weigh up the truth of her memories and her future. Nowhere in his answers had he tried to trap her into declaring feelings for him, nor had he outright spoken of love towards her.

Hatori was following the rules.

And yet, that didn't stop the _wanting_.

It didn't slow down the way she felt as his expression softened when he looked at her and told her that _no_, his lips separating slightly so she could see a flash of white teeth. How his gaze never wavered from her own, and a crinkle formed at the edge of his eyes when she finally smiled.

It might have been the knee jerk relief of her exams being over. Maybe it was hearing how closely he felt the bond to the ways she did. Who knew, it could've just been the effect of good food and companionable comfort but in that moment all she wanted to do was close the gap between them.

His hand was still on her cheek when his grip tightened.

"A _year, Rika_."

She froze. Forced rigidity into her limbs until she was little more than a mimicry of the statute on the fountain opposite them.

"Just for tonight, just this once," She whispered it against his lips, his breath warm on her cheek, "Yes or no?"

If he said no, she'd tear herself away. With difficulty, but she'd do it. She'd clamp down any thoughts of _if_ and _but_, every argument. Her hand was still interlinked with his, the other curled into the fabric of her coat. She wouldn't dare make a move until he did.

She _desperately_ wanted him to say yes. To feel how it might be to kiss him without the blurry rose tint of a bottle of sake on her lips. To know if it was the bond she felt come to life beneath her skin or something _more_.

"_Rika_…" He spoke it like a warning. A gospel. A shivered regret. She'd begun to pull away when he tugged her back to him. "Yes. _Just tonight_."

He let her initiate it and not even a freight train careening through the park right then could have stopped her kissing him. It wouldn't have held her from slipping her free hand into the short strands of hair at the back of his neck and it certainly couldn't have slowed down the way heat filled her from her mouth to her feet.

_Oh no_, she thought, _oh no._

If this was infatuation then she was the Empress, and if it was _love_ then she truly was doomed. A year. How on Earth was she to survive a year without _this_? The scent of him. The taste that lingered on her tongue. All of it was intoxicating, heightened further by the lack of alcohol blurring the edges.

When she broke away his jacket lapel was crumpled under her grip and she was dizzy from holding her breath. She hadn't even noticed. Fire coursed through her veins, that feeling singing with unbridled glee. She was fulfilling some whim, some desire of her bond except that wasn't all. Underneath that feeling was another.

A desire to keep kissing him until morning splashed the sky with sunlight and her mouth was hardly more than a bruise. To know the feel of his skin beneath her palms like she had that night. To know_ more_ of it. She was blinded by it. It consumed her. Rika wanted to tell him _just tonight_ meant more than a park bench and a kiss. It was to be the heated trail of kisses over exposed shoulders and dipped collar bones. A nip of teeth. The slow languorous sweep of fingertips from ankle to hip to shoulder to stomach until they'd mapped the other out on one side and moved to the other.

_Just leave me this_, she begged the heavens as his breath ghosted her jaw and down her neck and Rika's hands twisted his jacket beneath her clenched hands, _just this. I can live with this._

As with all things, it eventually found an end when her touch traced the top button of his shirt too eagerly. Hatori snatched her hand in his own, kissing the heel of her palm and then setting her hands in her lap. Leaning away.

"I was right." He shook his head, breathing hard and a flush visible beneath the collar of his shirt. "This year is going to be _impossibly_ long."

Rika laughed. Planted a foot to leverage herself forward and steal a final, brief, kiss. Hatori groaned.

"Then we'd better hurry up and keep living it." She stood upright and took his arm once he had gathered himself. His eyes were dark with want and the man tore his gaze away from her.

"You're trying to kill me." Nevertheless, he didn't pull away. He led her back to his car. To Shigure's. By the time she wished him goodnight the heat had worn from her skin but the memory of his touch had not and try as she might, Rika could barely sleep that night without thinking of it all again.

Love and infatuation were wholly different things. The bond and its effect on them were another factor again. Yet somewhere, buried deep beneath her ribs, a light had come on to tell her the truth of it all.

It was simply a matter of time before that truth rose to the surface and swallowed her whole. Until then, she would think of kisses on a park bench. Against an attic wall. Kisses that seared her whole but meant attraction and nothing more. Kisses that could be figured out later. Kisses that plagued her dreams and kisses that she would break the rules for again and again if given the chance.

_Just this once._


	29. Chapter 29

"Hari!" Her fist made a _thump-thump-thump_ against the door, Rika nearly bubbling over with excitement. "Hari, are you home?"

She should've called ahead. Warned him. Instead she'd realised there was mail and run straight for his door. Now, she was stood here like an utter buffoon and not entirely sure what to do next.

Raising her hand to give one last try, she almost toppled through the empty doorway when he pulled back the door. His hair was sleep ruffled. He was half dressed (or his version of it anyways) in slacks and a shirt buttoned up wrong.

"Do you realise what _time_ it is?" The man deadpanned at her and Rika looked at her watch.

"Six?"

"On a _Saturday_."

"But I have something!" She shoved the white envelope beneath his nose as he rubbed blearily at his eyes. Dressed like so, he was disarming in his humanity. It took all her strength not to reach out and straighten his hair for him. He perked up once he registered what she was holding, focus lodging on the official seal at the edge.

"Have you opened them yet?" Rika shook her head. He pulled the door open farther to allow her entry and she kicked off her shoes beside a pair of his. Dumped scarf and coat on the hooks. Just when these motions had become every day, she didn't know. It was harder to deny it when they flowed so easily. At some point in the last few months, she'd become less of a guest in his home. More a frequent flyer.

He led the way to the kitchen, Rika grabbing the mugs as he prepared coffee. She left the unopened envelope on the counter between them until they both had a warm mug in hand.

"Why were you up this early _anyways_?" He eventually asked, hip rested against the counter. Rika shrugged, distracted. She was trying her damnedest not to reach out and attempt to fix the order of his shirt buttons.

"I'm always up. Kyo and I go running then have breakfast with Tohru when we're home." Hatori shook his head, giving her a look as if seeing her for the first time. She had a feeling it was suddenly making sense to him how she'd snuck out of his place so early after new year's. The man frowned and looked back down to the elephant in the room.

"Why didn't you open it yet?"

She gestured weakly at the thing; her mouth twisted. The truth was fear. She'd been working so hard since Mayuko had first put forward the idea of her taking her entrance exams early. There'd been endless recommendations letters to be gathered. A particularly heart-breaking phone call to Master Chiba that made her briefly miss Okinawa (she'd gotten over it once she'd fully considered the possibility of going back there and leaving everything behind again). If what was inside those pages was anything less than what she needed for her acceptance to University then it would mean returning to stage one. Another year in high school that she didn't want to give.

An opportunity so close suddenly snatched from her fingertips.

Rather than say all that, she found another truth.

"I wanted to be with you when I did."

The man did a good job of covering up embarrassment but by now she had begun to learn his cues. A scratch at the back of his neck. Pink blossoming on the tips of his ears. For someone so stoic ninety-nine percent of the time, Rika was revelling in the one percent of him that she got to see that nobody else did.

Even if all it was ever going to amount to right now was attraction, she could live with it knowing she had his ticks and mannerisms down to an art. The opposite side of that of course, was that for every titbit he gave her, she gave something away in return.

"How afraid are you?" She flushed. The bastard knew her too well.

"Immensely."

He reached out. Squeezed her shoulder.

"Want me to read it for you?" Rika exhaled. Counted to ten.

"No. Part of fighting my own battles includes being brave enough to do this doesn't it?" He snorted. Raised a dark brow. Her expression clouded, daring him to disagree.

"If you say so."

"Shut up before I lose my mettle." She grabbed the paper and drew her thumbnail along the seal. It came away almost too slowly, determined to torture her to the last. When the page came free, she had it turned away from her but Hatori pointedly twisted his head away. She'd said she was doing this herself and he was respecting it. Yet another reason to put her faith in him.

Turning the page over she pressed it down onto the countertop. Pushed out the edges as flat as they would go. Ran her fingertips over the seal on the very top of the document, feeling the embossed edges. Each action was designed to sooth her. To set her mind at ease. None of them did. It was Hatori's arm looping around her waist that settled her erratic heart. The pressure of his touch against her side. The whispered words in her ear.

"Whatever it says Rika, you have _everything_ to be proud of."

Finally, she dared look at her results. And _shrieked_.

"I MADE THE CUT!" She nearly crumpled the page in her elation, twisting round to fling her arms around Hatori's neck. The man chuckled, accepting her embrace without question. Pulling her close to him, Rika had a brief moment of exaggerated glee before she promptly burst into tears. Hatori leaned back in alarm.

"Rika! What is it?"

Sniffling desperately, it took minutes before she could compose herself to spit out an answer.

"I – I ha-have to t-t-tell _K-ky-kyoooo_."

* * *

"You're leaving us again." Kyo's voice wasn't accusatory. Instead it was resigned. Accepting. Rika shifted on her futon to look up at his presence in the doorway, a dark and pulsing thing that she was almost afraid to touch. He'd been like it all evening since she'd returned from Hatori's with her news, adopting the band aid approach and blurting the full tale out in the kitchen over breakfast. She'd been hoping he'd make a reappearance at some point but knew that Kyo had to come to her. Even if seeing him tear out of the living room with door slamming in his wake had stung terribly.

"Come sit with me."

"I don't feel like it." How this utter prat ended up as her best friend, Rika could barely understand sometimes. All she knew was that she looked at him and knew what to say. To do.

She decided to exercise that ability.

"Sit your ass down or I'll tell your Shishou that it _was_ you that broke that vase in his hallway last month." Kyo grumbled under his breath but did as he was told, kicking his feet at the floor while he did so. As though the timber was the root of his problems. The futon sagged beneath his weight and Rika rode out the tide of his frustration. The betrayal she suspected he felt. She understood it, naturally, but couldn't let it stop her now. Not when things were finally falling into place.

"You can call him Shishou too." Kyo said finally, squaring his shoulders. The offering was surprising. "He - I think he'd like that."

"That's yours Kyo. It will always be yours." He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Those impossible eyes that shifted and changed with his mood, his pupils otherworldly. They were disappearing down to slits now and Rika leaned forward to claim his hand and pull it into her lap. Her thumb ran itself over his knuckles, teasing out his frustration and anger. "And I'll still always be your friend Kyo. Distance won't change that."

"It did before."

"Those were different circumstances. I remember now. _I love you_. Too much to forget."

"Not all of me. You don't _know_ all of me."

"I love the parts I do know and will love them as long as you let me."

He scoffed a non-committal response. Rika sat back, a little _thump-thump-thump_ of her head against the wall as she figured out what to say. How to explain it to him. Kyo reached for her. Slotted a hand behind her head and dropped his head to her shoulder. His look said, _don't do that_.

It was easy like this, to wrap her arms around him. Tuck his head beneath her chin.

"If I had stayed with the Sohma's growing up, I'd already be gone you know? To university. You and I would've had this goodbye two years ago. If we were still even friends." Would he have pushed her away long before then? For her safety. For his sanity. Rika liked to think that wouldn't have happened. Another possibility made itself known. "If I'd even been able to go." If she had survived that long. She would've just been another pawn in Akito's games, bowed and broken. Would she have lasted, knowing what she knew now? Hatori's eye. Rin's endless hospitalisations. Hiro and Kisa's pain. Somewhere within it, the spine holding her upright would've snapped. Anyone would have under that weight of responsibility.

"And if I'd been in Okinawa, well, we wouldn't know each other anymore." And there would've always been a piece of her missing. That inexplicable guilt. Shame. Full Bodied and agonising. Time might have helped. Therapy. A life could have been carved. University. A partner. Her father, still alive. It was a nice dream. A dream that would have been uncut by reality she couldn't shake. Love that never seemed to be enough. The optimist in her thought, perhaps she'd have had a breakthrough. Gotten her memories back on her own. Found her way to Tokyo and the Sohma family. She liked to think she'd have seen them happy. Moving on. What would that awareness have done to her? Knowing they'd found their way without her.

Instead -

"I _want_ to be a Sohma, Kyo, but the best kind I can be. Someone who can be there for her family because she's strong enough to stand up for herself. Leaving for university isn't just about me _leaving_ everyone. It's about me being someone who is worthy of _coming back_ to you, someone who doesn't have to rely on other people for every little bit of support."

Kyo's head rested against her chest, his body lax. It had started to rain, the _tat-tat-tat-tat _of drops hitting the shingles revealing why he was so pliable for once.

"I still don't have to like it."

"I know. I don't like it all that much either." Which was true. She _wanted _it. To follow a path beyond duty. Giving up a final year with her friends to do so felt like an immensely high cost, but so too did continuing to just move through the motions. School would mean spinning wheels and routines that only existed to keep her legs moving forward. University, that _was_ moving forward. "But I will be back. At weekends. The days I don't have lessons. Holidays. Plus, I don't leave until autumn."

"I guess," Kyo groused and she smiled against the bright red strands of his hair, "If he doesn't steal you away again."

She looked downwards through her lower lashes and a furrow appeared between her brows. Rika poked the teen on his shoulder.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not a toy to be _divvied out_." There was a suspicion mounting in her gut. A name that took form in her mind even as she queried it. Rika squashed it down as quickly as it rose, not willing to entertain _that_ idea yet. A year. Even just a hint of it reminded her of that night. The attic. Heated breaths and desperate touches. The evening on the bench. _Enough_, she thought with frustration, _leave me in peace_.

"Sorry," He sighed. "Forget it." Kyo's weight was hefty but comforting, and she exhaled. Stretched out until her ankle clicked and her limbs were soft. Her history with Kyo had come back little by little. Not enough to recount the whole story, but she could recall them laying like this as kids. He was heavier now. She was taller. Still they were able to be tucked rib cage to rib cage, the bones slotting together in their familiarity. It was funny in a way. Had anyone seen, it would've looked _intimate_. Which it was. Just not in the sense that would've appeared on the surface. She'd found herself craving these kinds of hugs. Feeling a whole bodied _relief_ when any of the Zodiac fulfilled them.

She suspected it was why she embraced Momiji's bouncing tackles. Kisa's hand holding. Why, when she slept in Hatori's living room, her head gravitated to his lap. Or he gravitated to her. For the most part, there was nothing expected in those embraces. It was just human contact. It made her world feel less _lonely_.

"I understand now."

Rika mumbled a confused _huh_ in response.

"When we were kids, you talked about a kind of love that lit you up like a sun under your skin. I get it now." She didn't dare look at him. Didn't dare move. That conversation she couldn't recall, but the feeling - she _knew_ that feeling. "Only I don't think it's the only way to love someone. I reckon it can be like the warmth after clothes get put in a dryer. There's patches of heat, some enough to burn, but most of its just gentle."

Her mouth quirked into a smile against her will and she knew he felt it against his hair.

"Shut up."

She didn't say that she hadn't spoken. She didn't have to. He knew why she smiled, and she knew why he equated his love to the laundry.

"I think it can be something else too." Rika murmured drowsily, eyes closed, once Kyo's breaths had lengthened and softened, his inhales heavier. "I think it can feel like the ocean on a bright day. There's salt on your lips and your feet in the sand. It's warm and scratchy on your skin. When you reach the water, it's cold at first but that evens out. Invites you in. Washes away all the things you don't like about yourself and replaces them with seashells and glinting sunlight. Gifts instead of - _instead of_ -." Her voice trailed. The rain fell. The cat and his fractured god slept on.

* * *

The house was quiet as Rika checked over her exam results again, mind whirring. It had been two days since she'd gotten official confirmation and bright and early Monday had dawned the arrival of her University exam pack. It was another exam, arguably more difficult than the initial ones but Rika had already passed the first hurdle with flying colours. Jumping the second a week from now was merely a box ticking exercise.

Teeth pulling at her bottom lip, the woman twisted her hair in her palms.

Kyo's comment about her not knowing him fully had stuck with her since that night, a nagging sensation in her stomach that told her what she was missing was _big_. Important as hell.

She'd sworn to herself to consider asking Hatori for her memories back after the first exams but now with her University admissions exam so quickly after, she had a clearly defined timeline. Either she could suck it up and finally set her role within this family to rights – or keep running. Convincing Hatori that she didn't need protecting would be a damn sight harder with the latter. He already was prone to jump to her defence in a split second. If she told him she wasn't ready, that she didn't want them at all – he'd accept that.

Rika _wasn't_ ready. To face Akito. The truth.

She was also running out of time.

The longer she delayed, the less time to begin reparations after graduation. Could she _really_ live with the guilt anymore? That constant itch beneath her skin that felt like it was eating her inside out?

_No_.

Therefore, like it or not, _it was time_.


	30. Chapter 30

Rain hammered the windscreen of the car as it wound its way towards the Sohma lake house, trees and sky blending in Rika's vision into one amorphous blob of grey. It was near impossible to concentrate on anything but the knot in her stomach. Fibres of fear, anticipation and guilt had snagged themselves together, each one more tangled than the last. A hand brushed her thigh and she visibly flinched.

"You don't have to do this today." Hatori tried again to dissuade her and Rika rolled her head towards him, trying to swallow down the bile in her mouth.

"Yes." She said. "I do."

He didn't dare open his mouth again but his hand remained on her thigh as he drove, shifting only to change the gearstick. As if he could imbue her with a sense of calm and comfort. His act lasted as far as the outer edges of the house they were driving to, another car visible parked against the building.

"Who's here…" He murmured it more to himself than to her, Rika's distraction keeping her from noting the full extent of his worry until she heard him swear violently under his breath.

"What is it?"

"Stay in the car okay? You don't get out until I'm back do you hear me?" The car screeched to a halt on the gravel drive, Hatori jumping from his seat before she could even protest. Curiosity outweighed her nervous tension, woman leaning forward to try get a better look at the other vehicle in the driveway. It was a black, nondescript thing and the rain bounced off of it in a way that suggested its engine had been cold a while.

Curling her braid between her fingertips, Rika wondered who it might be. She'd told Kyo and the others where she was going to be this weekend, the decision having been agreed upon by everyone that waiting until Golden Week was the ideal time for her to miss out on a few days of normal activity. Hatori had never had to restore anyone's memories before so he was understandably nervous about the whole process. Demanding more time for Rika to recover should it take more from her than they wanted it to. His agitation hadn't done much to help her own and as the minutes ticked by painfully, her muscles tensed. Discomfort grew.

At the half hour mark, she saw a person exit the house, the rain obscuring their features as they moved to the other vehicle and climbed in. The car moved closer to the building and Rika spotted a side door.

Unable to help herself she climbed out, a couple of seconds all it took for her hair to become matted to her skin and even her raincoat was instantly battered by the intensity of the downpour. Rika managed to wrestle the hood over her head but was unconvinced by its ability to do much of anything in the bleak weather.

The man driving hovered beneath an alcove at the side of the house, Rika only realising she knew the face as she drew closer.

"Kureno?"

He turned sharply, mouth a stressed thin line.

"Rika, you shouldn't be out here. Hatori said you were to stay in the car, didn't he?"

"Hatori's been gone for over a half hour. What's going on?"

"They were trying to protect you from _me_." The voice made her blood turn cold, Rika turning too late to stop a hand from snatching at the collar of her coat. It shook her so violently that her lifted hood fell back once again.

"_Akito_." Hatori's voice rang out from the doorway, the sharp edge of it countered by Kureno's soft echoing in the same moment.

"You think you can just waltz back into all their lives and I would let it go unchecked?" Rika's vision was blurring around the edge, her fingers scrabbling ineffectively at the other's sleeve. Pain had burst into being behind her eyes as she'd registered the face and now it was all she could do not to throw up. "You think I don't _notice_ your disobedience? The visits to my home? You made a _deal_ and _broke it_!"

Kureno's arm had wrapped itself around Akito's small frame in an attempt to pull Rika free but all the freedom gave her was the ability to stagger backwards until her rear hit the gravel. She retched onto the ground as Akito's voice gained more anger.

"You're _pathetic! They don't want you and you'll see that." _She shouted it as Rika tried and failed to get to her feet, palms shearing themselves against gravel until Hatori's hoisted his arms beneath hers, pulling her upright, "You're pathetic! _Pathetic!_"

Breaking away from the doctor, Rika could hear a wail on the breeze. It took a few seconds to realise it was her own voice tearing its way through her throat. Akito's expression was wild and terrifying but not as horrific as the slew of memories that had been unlocked all at once. A dam breaking open, all its contents flowing out without pause or consideration for the forests and villages in its path. The trajectory was destruction and although she could hardly see for the pain, Rika saw a line between where she stood and escape.

Without looking back, she ran.

* * *

_There were stars on the ceiling. _

_Rika, in all her five years, had never seen anything so magical. _

"_Do you know what they are?" Akito asked at her ear, fingertips making an arc as she pointed out a particular constellation that had been thrown against the curtains nearby. Rika shook her head. "That one is the kogitsune because it looks like a fox," Another sweeping hand, "And over there is the dog." _

_Rika leaned back against the pillow, the little turning mobile of stars that Akira had gotten for them rotating gently enough so that they could track the trajectory of their favourites. _

"_The only one I know is the dragon," The small girl admitted, almost to herself more than her friend, "Mom showed me when we went to the observatory. She showed me others but I forgot." _

_The slip of her memory was waved off as Akito took her hand and pulled her upright. _

"_Someday, we're going to be made of stardust and space rocks."_

"_But doesn't that mean we'll be alone?" Rika asked, mouth tugging downwards to a growing frown. "I don't want to be alone."_

"'_Course not," Akito's voice was soft but firm, a dark head bowing towards light, "When you're with me you'll never be alone. I have all the zodiac, but you'll always have me. Always."_

_Rika smiled, the expression betraying a little of her disbelief but Akito was her best friend in the whole world. She'd never lie to her. Never leave her. Never betray her. Flinging her arms around the other girl's neck sent them both tumbling onto the sheets of their shared bed. Laughing, the pair curled around one another like two koi in a pond. A circle binding them into something whole. They remained like that, trapped together in giggles and awe until Akira stuck his head in the door to remind them they needed to sleep. It was always Akira who came to find them. Sometimes with Kimiko at his tail, sometimes Takuto but always Akira. Tonight, he bowed and placed kisses against both their brows. Tucked them in. Switched out the stars. Rika's fingers were wound tightly against Akito's, and she knew from the pressure against her palm that her friend had seen the same shadows under the Sohma head's eyes. The gaunt lines of his face. How he'd stopped to catch his breath before turning back to look over them a final time. _

"_Night papa." _

"_Night Uncle."_

_Akito's voice called at the same time Rika's did and the door slid shut, folding them both into shadow. _

"_He's gonna die soon isn't he?" Dying was a concept still foreign to Rika. It seemed too far away to be real and yet, she couldn't work up the words to dispute Akito's question. _

"_Maybe," Rika murmured finally, squeezing the other's fingers gently between her own before echoing words back to her friend, "But you'll still have me. Always." _

_The girls fell silent, limbs tangled. Dark hair mixed with light. A god made whole. _

* * *

"_My mom says we can't be friends anymore."_

_Rika looked up from the picture she'd been colouring, youth evident in the wide glow of her eyes and the single side ponytail that her hair had been haphazardly tied into._

"_What?" Akito had been quieter than normal, the other girl usually talkative when the two were left to their own devices. At six she wasn't as emotionally equipped for odd silences but she did recognise them. The colouring pencil in Akito hand snapped under the pressure applied by the dark-haired girl, equally dark eyes meeting Rika's._

"_My mom says we can't be friends." Akito repeated the words with slow emphasis, as though Rika were some baby rather than the same age. Instead of bristling at the words, Rika tucked her own green pencil to the side and met the others stare with quiet ferocity._

"_Why?" It was a slow and cautious question, and one she wasn't going to curb. Rika and Akito had been spending playtime together since they were out of the womb. For that status quo to change so drastically meant something greater than them both had shifted. Rika didn't understand why the words and the very idea of them not being friends any longer made her heart stutter in its beats - but she did know that whatever had inspired these words affected her friend greatly. That much was evident in how tautly the other girl was holding her body. Rika pressed the topic, a footstep dropped inelegantly onto uneven ground. "Why can't we?"_

"_ARE YOU STUPID?" The tension snapped, Akito diving forward at Rika who wasn't fast enough to avoid the collision. "I am the god! I am the god and you have to listen to me so when I say we can't be friends; we can't be friends okay?!" _

_Fists and tears rained down on Rika's body, pulling and tearing at any bared skin that could be reached. It was remarkable violence for a six-year-old to wield but wield it Akito did as she repeated her mantra over and over again until all Rika could do was apologise. Her apologies echoed in the room between sobs until new bodies were there, pulling Akito from her war path. _

_Moisture seeped down Rika's clothing as Kureno ordered Shigure to take Akito away to cool down. In his arms Rika trembled, shocked and baffled at what kind of switch had been flipped in her best friend to cause such an outburst. _

* * *

"_You've done enough Akito!" The smell made Rika's eyes water, a cloying sense of decay and shame that filled her senses to the brim and then forced them into overflow. Her arms were looped around the misshapen form beneath her but her eyes were spared for Akito and Akito alone._

"_They're my zodiac!" Akito spat it, moisture flying from her mouth in rage. "You don't get to say when I'm done!"_

"_I won't take them." That seemed to pull the wind from Akito's sails, the seven-year-old returning to the size of a normal child than the monster she'd been channelling. Rika's sigh of relief was too loud in her own ears and she didn't dare look at the boy cradled under her arms. She could hear him sobbing quietly, feel the movement as he tried to reclaim the beads that had been torn from his wrist. Rika straightened, edging her way closer to Akito as she did. Lowering her voice in a warning. _

"_But if you keep hurting them, you'll lose them anyway." _

"_They're mine to hurt!"_

"_And you'll be a god on your own if you do!" Rika registered the laceration her words left. Uncle Akira's death had left all the house sad. Her own mom was heartbroken and if Rika could have poured all the grief into a box and locked it away then she would've. Instead she had to do the next best thing. _

"_It's not your PLAC -"_

"_Give them to me!" Akito was swelling and almost incandescent with anger so she ploughed ahead in haste while she still had a chance of making the other agree with her, "The ones you want to hurt and hate and need to lock away. You give them to me and I'll take their punishments. I'll never tell them. That way, they will see you as something good. You'll be their god, the person they love and they need and when you're angry you use me. When you're lonely and sad, you call me."_

_Rika had no true comprehension of the promise she was making, but she knew she had to. Akito, the real soft and quiet Akito who had been her closest friend and ally, had changed. She was crueller. Desperate for control. Looking for a way to fill some void that Rika couldn't and wouldn't ever understand. _

_She had heard the cries of horror in the courtyard when going to meet her mom. Seen the boy shift from human, to something less than that. Watched the malignant fire spread and burn through Akito's eyes as she reaped pleasure out of Kyo's pain. Rika knew from her head to her toes that that person was not Akito. Akito was gentle. Witty. Scared. Akito made her feel whole and rounded out. _

_This new version was something born in the nasty words of Aunt Ren and the absence of Uncle Akira. This new version was barrelling headfirst into the loneliness she seemed to desperately want to avoid. This version was going to drive the Zodiac to the farthest reaches of the globe or make them all wish they could escape. _

"_I'll protect their love for you. I'll make sure you will always have them."_

_Rika knew she'd won before Akito spoke again. She could see it in her eyes. The expression scared her, but Rika was too deep now to back away. _

"_When I call, you come to me. Anytime." Rika nodded dumbly, Akito's voice hardly more than a whisper of cold triumph. "Take your dumb cat. The smell makes me feel like I'm going to puke." _

_She staggered back when the other girl swept back into her house, Rika turning to look at the smaller boy now sitting on the ground behind her. The smell had faded but the memory of it still made her stomach roil. She tried to smile through it. _

"_Kyo right?" She asked it cautiously, crouching down and shrugging off her jacket to replace his shorn sweatshirt that was scattered on the ground. "I like your orange hair. Let's be friends, okay?"_

* * *

Rika's feet hit uneven ground and she stumbled into the bough of a tree. Her breath was fire in her chest, curling its way through her lungs and clawing to the surface. Coughing roughly, she could feel her body protesting the distance she'd run. Straining against the pain that had flooded every synapse and cell in her head until the trees, the path and the rain became nothing more than a blurred collection of surfaces to tear at her. Somewhere, she'd fallen, the knees of her jeans ripped. The pumps she'd worn with the knowledge that she wouldn't be walking any more than the path between house and car were in shreds.

"Stop," She keened it, flashes of her childhood mashing together faster and faster. "Please, _stop_."

Hatori and a hospital bed. Origami. Nights spent at Kazuma's. Momiji. Kisa.

Rika emptied her stomach against the roots of a particularly large tree, fingernails dragging over the bark. There was almost nothing left in her to give but her memories continued on regardless and so she staggered on. Seeking shelter. Calm.

A place to catch her breath.

* * *

"_It's not working."_

_Akito's voice was colder than she expected, though maybe Rika was simply projecting the quiet shudder of her body into a form that made sense. She had curled herself into the tightest corner of the little room, a gap in the woodwork blowing a cool breeze against the back of her neck. She'd been too warm for days now, a fever coursing its way through her system but that was nothing to the blossoming pain across her ribs. How her jaw ached when she dared to eat. _

_Rika knew why she was being punished. She'd sworn to Akito to protect the unwanted zodiacs from her but when Kisa and Hiro had been alone in that park and subsequently transformed - Akito's wrath had been uncontainable. She'd slipped up. Spilled her anger onto every passing person who came within her grasp while Rika cradled Kyo against his fears. His anguish. It was impossible to regret that choice, but there were whispers in the house. Of what had been done to Yuki. To Kureno. The very people Akito wanted most to love her. To retain their loyalty. _

_Knowing those things didn't make the consequences any easier. Rika wanted Hatori back. Her mom. To be embraced in kind whispers and comfort. Her clothes reeked. She hadn't washed in days. Yet when Akito spoke, she forced herself upright. Willed herself to listen. _

"_The punishments?" _

"_My giving them to you." Rika flinched. She remembered her promise too clearly, just as she knew that she was failing in it. Selfish need to see the curse broken was shattering years of constructed goodwill. Awareness sent pain blossoming over her chest. "They were meant to return. You were meant to be their path back to me. Instead they're choosing you_."

"_I didn't ask -,"_

"_I know." It was the most civil Akito had been to her in years and Rika was too afraid to meet her eyes. If she found pain there, she didn't know what she would do. It was already too hard bearing the weight of that anger. She couldn't handle the hurt too. Not now. _

"_What can I do to make it right?" Rika asked eventually, her head bowed to her chest. She felt heavy with the weight of duty. Of bearing Akito's whims and watching others live peaceful lives devoid of violence or faith. Faith, she hated most of all. Faith that someday Hari might look at her the way she wanted him. Faith that Kyo could escape this room in his future. Faith that Akito would be comfortable and happy with who she was and how the Zodiac's lived their lives. She hated it because it made decisions for her. To take the kids under her wing. To run to Kyo when he rang her in tears. "What can I do go make you not hurt them ever again."_

"_Stop them loving you."_

_Silence fell on the room again and when Rika finally dared look up, the other girl was gone._

* * *

"_Akito you cannot do this to people! To family!" Rika could hear the tight anger in Hatori's voice, one of his hands still trying to hold her behind him. To protect her. Her heart soared at the knowledge only to crash violently back to earth when she dared to look past the older teen. Akito's expression was everything she hadn't wished to see. To know._

_It was terror and anguish and rage all at once. _

_The blood left Rika's face so violently the world spun as she saw their future spilling out before them. Word would spread. Akito's violence. Anger. Hatori would bear the marks of it. Then Yuki. Kyo. All of them. They'd all be torn apart when the Zodiac was meant to be bringing them together. A unified party. How else could the curse be broken? How else might Kyo be protected?_

_Dark eyes met golden and her nod was almost an imperceptible agreement. _

_Akito was losing them because of her. _

_People were going to be hurt because of her. _

_The curse would never be broken because of her. _

_Kyo would face this very room because of her._

_A common denominator was rising and Rika didn't need Hatori's smarts to recognise it. To know what she had to do. Akito's form was radiating anger and that nod was the pulled plug. She wasn't sure how they did it so artfully. Akito's raised hand and spittle flying. Rika shoving her way past Hatori and falling to her knees. It was an act formed of many movable parts but the tears and the offerings she made were all honest and true. _

_Rika swore to leave. In wrenching sobs, she promised Akito a world without her presence and without her memories. When Akito pulled her upright by the collar, shoving Hatori away with one hand - only Rika saw the truth of her heart. _

"_I will get them back and nothing you do can change that." It was a promise of Akito's own written into the guise of a threat. Rika saw how her eyes glistened and shut her own. It was going to be too painful as it was to let them all go. When she staggered it was into Hatori's arms and saw only Akito's retreating back. Her barked order hanging in the air._

"_Do it then. Take every memory of us all and send her away. I've had enough of this sight. Her parents will be removed by morning." _

_Even making the promise didn't stop her begging Hatori for something to remain. A chance to come back and see how Akito fared. To know that every one of them had become something more, something better, than they'd ever be in her presence. To know that her faith was more than a thing to hate, but something tangible to trust in too. _

_Through sobs, Rika reached for him. Wrapped both hands around his wrist and held him fast as she pleaded. Until he promised. _

"_You Hari. Leave me you."_

_She gasped a breath as he touched a palm to her forehead, the last words she uttered carried faint. _

"_I love you."_

_I love you. I love you. I love you. _

* * *

Hatori was out of breath. For a woman undergoing what could only have been tremendous pain she could still outrun him. The woods were dangerous and dark, rain slicking the ground so that he almost missed where she'd veered off the main track until he fell into the divot in the earth.

Between the trees his path was slower. Mud swallowed her footprints but he found one of her shoes stuck in a thicket of shrubbery. He picked it up. Swore. This whole thing had been a mess from the start and now it was unbridled chaos. Akito at the lake house waiting for them. Rika's stubbornness interfering again. Wiping at his eyes he found he'd reached a diversion in the trees. Hesitated.

"You promised me." The words cut through the wind and rain, drawing Hatori's gaze from the path to a lone tree. Rika had found refuge there, clothes and skin splattered with mud and her hands curled possessively around her abdomen as though trying to hold herself together. Even without her saying as much he recognised the look in her eyes and his stomach lurched with discomfort.

The last time he'd seen that look -

"You _lied_ to me." It was hard to tell if she was crying, the lines cutting through the dirt on her cheeks as likely the outcome of the rain as her emotions. He was trying to take stock of her features. Measuring the extent of the injuries. The forest had never been the safest place to be and it took little time for him to notice the blood that marred her hands or the gash she'd gained across her knee.

"Rika -," He held out a hand but she flinched further back against the bark, a wounded animal. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Her head bowed at the words, a keen sounding from deep in her chest and it pierced him right to the bone. She was twenty but she may as well have been fourteen again, her hands tangled into the fabric of his shirt as she wept. Except this woman didn't trust him anymore. That much was evident as each step forward forced her another step back. "I had no choice."

"I _begged you_. I remember it. I begged and begged and _begged_ for you to leave me something and instead all I have is this emptiness. This _pain and guilt and you lied! You lied!"_ The words got progressively louder and Hatori stalked a little closer. She had run out of space to retreat and he tentatively reached for her. Trailed hands over her shoulders before pulling her close to his chest.

"I'm sorry Rika." He tried to keep the shudder out of his own words, to not be wounded by the flinch as he held her to him. "Please know that. I can't take it back but know I never meant for this." Her body was trembling, clothes damp and dirty. He hadn't meant to let it happen this way and the appearance of Akito reeked of Shigure's doing. Restoring her memories was meant to be gentle, an unpicking of the hypnosis she'd been under since her early teens. He had wanted to give her back the good. The joyful. Whatever Akito's presence had done it had reduced Rika to a quivering mess and cracked open the doorway to the past with brutal precision. Hatori could feel it in each gasping breath, the panic that coursed through her limbs and lungs and heart. She was murmuring something close to the crook of his neck but before he could make sense of it - she went limp.


	31. Chapter 31

Sunlight split the room into fractals as Rika's eyes opened, the light almost unbearably bright and enough that she flung a hand over her face to shield it. When she'd adapted better, she allowed herself to sit upright and examine where she was, brow furrowing as she examined the futon she'd been placed in. There were bandages hooked around her ankles and even without walking Rika could feel where blisters had formed on the base of her feet.

The world felt strangely off kilter. Brighter. More of, well, _everything_.

Her memories were back. Years of doubting herself and inexplicable gnawing guilt - it had all been given an answer. Burying her face in her hands she started to laugh. Of course, it _would_ have had to be like this. Painful and terrifying and - _briiiiiiiing_.

A phone snapped her out of her rising panic, Rika throwing back the covers and stepping out into the hallway. The room she'd been in was unfamiliar, housing only a bookshelf and reading light. Nothing gave away her location as she reached the phone, an extension line by the looks of it, unsure whether to answer. At least until she realised nobody else was coming to get it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this the Sohma residence? I was told this number should put me through to the right person" Rika almost laughed and asked _which bloody one?_

"Yes, but I'm not -," She hesitated, "Can I take a message?" There was a pad of paper and pen beside the receiver and she noted the bandages around a few of her fingers. Flexing her hand, she noted nothing was broken but there was tension in the joints. Somewhere in her flight from the lake house, she had bruised herself up badly.

"Could you tell Hatori Sohma that Detective Ito called? It's regarding Rika Hayashi and the incident she was involved in." Her breath caught violently and Rika's fingers spasmed around the pen.

"It's me. Detective, I'm Rika." The woman on the other end was polite, offering sympathies and inquiring to her health. It was over the course of ten minutes that he told her of the ongoing investigation that had led to her father's death and then finally, the court's ruling.

* * *

The door closed heavily in the main living room, Rika barely looking away from the window and the view of the lake in the distance. The previous days rain had vanished, leaving the trees and skyline lush. She wasn't sure how she felt, but anger was still sitting heavily at the surface. It rolled and howled just beneath her skin, flooding her with heat. She wished for rain. For a thunderstorm. Some acknowledgement of the world outside that it could relate to the tempest in her chest would've softened the blow.

Instead, the sun shone bright.

"Rika…" Hatori's voice was tentative and the man stepped forward with a bag clasped within his hand. "You should sit."

"I feel fine." His reflection showed his flinch quite clearly at the flat edge to her voice. Her heels were numbed. The wound across her knee had been dressed. Hatori had already seen to the worst of the injuries picked up from her attempts to escape her memory overload but most of it was surface level. The things he could reach and treat in the midst of her being unconscious.

Rika knew this.

She suddenly knew a _lot_ of things.

Too many things, a small voice said from the back of her mind. Things she could've happily gone to her grave without knowing at all. A wave of emotion hit her so violently she buckled forward against the glass, fingertips turning white while she attempted to get control of herself. To stop the nausea rising and splatting the floor – not that there was much of anything in her stomach.

"You're allowed to _not_ be fine." Hatori had moved closer, the too casual step of a man approaching a wounded animal. Somehow, that enraged her all the more.

"You'd know all about that wouldn't you?" She twisted on the balls of her feet to look at him properly, oscillating wildly between the warmth that usually rose upon seeing him and sheer unbridled rage. Rika slammed her teeth together in her mouth to stop herself from lashing out. To hold back the weight of the pain she was trying to sift through. No matter how desperately she tried, the cracks had grown too big to paper over. To stem the tide. "How often did you tell me that when I was a kid Hatori? How often did you actually believe it or was it all lip-service? You certainly didn't tell me that Detective Ito was in contact with you. Or that you _knew_ that old woman had fallen asleep at the wheel and _that's_ why my dad is dead. Where was your honesty _then_?"

She watched the tick in his jaw as he studied her. Placed the bag aside onto the sofa that stood between them. Colour had drained from his face, leaving two pale pink patches along his cheekbones.

_Grief_.

That's what she could feel. Getting her memories back was meant to be freeing. An escape from the guilt and shame she hadn't been able to name but instead it had thrown it all into sharp focus. Had shattered illusions. Desires. The woman's body ached but it was her heart aflame.

"I always meant it." Hatori finally said, a hand reaching into his pocket in a habit she recognised. "That I wanted to be honest." He'd done that as a teenager too, when agitated. A hand in his pocket to hide the tension of a clenched fist. Pink speckling its way along the curve of his neck. In that moment, she hated knowing those things. Hated the memory of it. She wanted the Hatori that she'd met over the past few months, who kissed her with abandon and made her feel like she was flying ten thousand feet above the earth.

That Hatori was hard to reconcile with the man she now saw fully before her. A man, a _teenager_ who had –

"Never enough to actually stop it though." Her teeth ground together mouth. "Where would you have drawn the line? When I was dead? Fat lot of good it'd have done me isn't it!?"

"I thought I was doing what was best."

"For Akito. For _you_." She spat it at him. "You put me back together each time. You and your father, hiding my injuries. Brushing away my nightmares. You both worked _so_ hard to cover the evidence but did either of you actively try to _stop it?_" She had sold her soul to Akito at seven years of age. Sold it in a way that had left her bowed and broken time after time _after time_.

"You know I tried to tell my mom?" This was spoken more flippantly, Rika stepping back towards the window as a greater burst of nausea rose once more. "About it all. I wanted _help_. I wanted to protect you all and you know what she said? You know how she _reacted_? She told me it was for the good of the family! That I was exaggerating. My time in that house was a chance to make the world right, to gain our place once and for all. After Uncle Akira died, she couldn't bear to look at Akito anymore. Couldn't face Ren. So _she_ cowered in our home and accepted that my time spent in the main house was all for some divine _right_."

Rika's throat felt raw with a checked scream.

The estrangement with the Sohma's she'd known of but not _fully_. In Okinawa, without the memory of the Sohma's, Rika had just thought it was her mother's pain at falling out with family but with the wool pulled from her eyes she could see the truth. The _agony_ Kimiko Hayashi had had over being banished from the main estate.

Worst of all was the _guilt_.

Rika had been the one to make the damn choice. To pull the plug on her presence within the family as though it was something that could've been erased overnight. As though all it encompassed was a quick memory alteration and that was it. Foolish. That was what she was. _Foolish_.

Except fourteen-year olds ought to have been able to be foolish without crashing down worlds around them.

Where had the adults been? The guiding factions? That ones in charge?! She'd spent the last year trying to work her way back into being a good enough Sohma without stopping to consider whether they had ever deserved her in the first damn place. That guilt in her gut driving every decision. Every apology.

The Zodiac weren't to blame. A logical part of her knew that. It was the maids. The parents. The insidious strings pulled and cut and reshaped to give each of them a little sliver of power. To put them into the god's hands, to make them shine a little bit more than the person they thought they had to compete against.

Her own mother had avoided the game until Akira's death, but not as effectively as she'd believed. She'd sold out her daughter for the odds of an official acceptance into the main house. Continued to do so after Akira had died and Ren had taken over control. Ren, the woman she had complained about at length for her audacity. Her poisonous tendencies. Ren who lived in the very house Rika was sent to time and again, Ren the mother of the child Kimiko believed would be the dawning of a new age for the Sohma family. Ren who had _detested_ Kimiko and Rika's very existence and funnelled that hatred down into her child. A child who had grown to fear her. To loathe her. To become her _waking nightmare_.

Hot on the heels of that recollection was a clawing sensation from her lungs. She was struggling to breathe. To cope. To _live_.

Hatori hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken a word. Now he was moving forward to force her head forward as gently as he could and telling her to keep drawing breath.

Wretched sobs burst from within her, eyes and nose streaming while her legs gave way. Weeping into his shoulder she wanted to yell and scream and tear at him but instead found herself clinging to his jacket as though he'd vanish in the blink of an eye.

"I didn't know." Hatori spoke softly, syllables edged with regret. "Rika, I swear I _didn't know_."

About _what_, she wanted to ask him.

He'd seen the results of the beatings. The broken bones. The vow then? The tangled desperation of Kimiko to regain a foothold in the inner workings of the house. Akito's unchecked hatred and venom.

Memories rang in her ears. The damning _click_ of the lock in the cat's room. Akito's incomprehensible shouting. Kyo's nightmares. Her own voice, _begging_. Grip softening against his shoulder, Rika shoved him away. Curled herself small against the cool glass behind her.

"Don't touch me," It was rasped when he reached back for her, his hand stopping an inch from her arm at the demand, "Don't you _dare_."

She'd loved him. Innocently. Desperately.

Loved him in the ways that she could fathom at that age. Ways he had been old enough to recognise, ways that he had chosen to _ignore_ when Akito had seen fit to make the demand that Rika's memories be wiped.

Fourteen. She'd been _fourteen_.

_Everything_ had been taken from her. She'd begged him to leave her something and he hadn't. No wonder it had all hurt so damn much. Those feelings couldn't vanish with the snap of fingers. She'd loved them all so _damn much_ and he'd taken that from her. He'd taken Kyo and Kisa and Momiji away. He'd taken himself.

Had she been able to think through the roaring in her ears, Rika might have paused to wonder how difficult it had been for him to do it but all she could see was the hurt she felt. That consumed her.

Keening, Rika bowed her head between her knees.

How much of it might have been solved if someone, _anyone_, had intervened? Her mother's negligence and subsequent failing health? The car crash that had taken her father from her? Had she been taken out of the environment sooner; would both her parents still be alive and well? Questions spun wildly in her head, demanding answers where there were none.

Her pulse was racing. She could feel it in the flutter of her heart and the way her vision clouded. Trying to channel some of Master Chiba's old advice, Rika focused on one spot ahead of her. Pinpointed all her agony towards it until her breathing settled back to something more human again. The feral, animalistic part of her wanted to see Hatori stumble and flail under the lashing of her tongue but a more powerful feeling was trying to exercise caution. To remind her that he was her ally. Even if she could hardly look at him.

"Akito." She spoke the name with venom, throwing it from the tip of her tongue like it the danger it was. "Why was she _here_?"

"Someone…" Hatori hedged, his hands resting against his lap betraying a spasm as he lied, "Someone told her."

Rika almost threw his promise back at him, but some bonds were difficult to overcome. Not least the ones formed between childhood friends. Kyo. _She wanted Kyo._ Every part of the plan for this week was falling apart. Hatori was meant to ease her into her memories over the course of a few days, allowing time for her to adapt. To ask questions. She'd been looking forward to it. To getting to know Hatori better without the hindrance of her memory. Akito's presence had been a painful accelerant to an open flame and in the wake of it, Rika felt like her very insides were on fire. The day before, she'd have sworn Hatori was the one to soothe them but he'd _lied_ to her. The bond, _their_ bond, had been infallible until it wasn't. How could he claim to protect her when all he'd ever done was pick up the pieces after the damage had been done? That wasn't protection, it was _arrogance_. Ignorance. _Foolishness_. She'd trusted him and he'd stood by and done nothing.

_No_. It was worse than that. He'd done the very thing she'd begged him _not_ to do.

Bile sitting at the back of her mouth, she finally met his eyes and saw defeat. Rather than fuel the violence humming beneath her skin, she chose disinterest.

"Take me home."

* * *

The car ride back to Shigure's house was carried out in silence, Hatori glancing at Rika as surreptitiously as he could manage while still keeping his eyes on the road. Knuckles white against the steering wheel, the man wanted to pull the car over. To empty his stomach onto asphalt. For as long as he could remember he had been making promises that weren't kept.

_Take my eyes_, he begged, _take my heart, take my soul. Take anything unimportant but let me be snow while she remains fire. Most of all, don't take her away again. _

That prayer, he'd spoken it so often now that the man didn't know if it could be counted as effective any longer. Warning Tohru away from the Sohma family had been easy. Necessary. Warning Rika away would've been futile. The woman was as embroiled in the cursed chaos as he was, just as broken and twisted by it. That didn't mean he couldn't wish for her to have something better. More freedom. Comfort. _Peace_.

He wanted her but he wanted her happiness more. The Sohma family, for as much as she loved them, had not brought her that.

"I could," He began, "I could take it away again. If you wished."

The look she shot at him was mutinous and cold, a dagger to his heart. Just as quickly she turned to gaze out the window again, evening light throwing the bruises on her skin into sharper focus.

"Shut up Hatori."

He deigned to do as he was told, stomach churning with nausea. Over the past month he'd warred with himself to tell her the full extent of his involvement in her departure but he'd never known what might trigger the darker memories. What could've sent her reeling instead of giving her the answers she so desperately desired. He wanted to stop the car and vomit. He wanted to stop the car and beg her to understand, to not turn that look of hatred back towards him again. At New Year's, the man had realised that Shigure and Ayame's proclamations for him to be two thousand times happier than he had been were coming true. Seeing Rika was a balm to his soul, bond and love ensnaring him in their net until he yearned for her presence. Always an independent soul, to find himself wanting to be with someone so _desperately_ was jarring. It was also thrilling. Exciting. Rika didn't threaten the comfort of his independence, she merely – _fit into it_.

Then last night had happened and the hourglass he'd allocated himself to yearn for her before making a proper move had dwindled out. Come up short.

Having her recoil from his embrace was one thing but it had been knowing that the pain she was feeling in that moment was all on him. Was all _his_ fault. That was the worst. The most damning.

Worse, a part of him knew that there was more to come. Why else would Akito have shown up last night to try intervene? She'd not said it outright and was smart enough not to order him to withhold the memories but there'd been a knowing glint in her eyes as she'd dared him to go ahead with his plan. To give the truth back to Rika.

"_She'll leave you once she remembers." Akito had laughed, "You don't know why she left but I know she'll leave. If she's smart, she'll do it soon." _

That laugh sent chills down his spine and the man risked a glance to the blonde at his side. He'd not expected the change in her to be so _physical_. Her body sat more rigid. Jaw locked tight in anger. Still beautiful, he thought guiltily, more beautiful than ever.

Would she ever see past what he'd done? Or would she remain angry at him indefinitely. Move away to university and never come back?

Hatori mourned the very idea of it. Rika, _gone_.

_Again_.

Pulling the car into the driveway, he waited for her cue. Rika seemed to be psyching herself up for something, hands moving erratically against her seatbelt. Eventually she turned around to grab the overnight bag she'd brought with her to the lake house and clicked herself free. Stepped out.

Hatori followed, front door rattling open to reveal Shigure.

"Back so soon?" The novelist trilled, stepping out into the yard to meet them. Dark eyes flickered to Hatori as he noted Rika's expression. The hard line of her shoulders. Her fist flew out of nowhere, clocking the other man across the jaw and sending him sprawling onto the ground.

"Stay the hell out of my business from now on. Just because _you_ want to be Akito's perpetual lapdog, doesn't mean we all do." Rika all but spat it at Shigure, head never turning back to Hatori. "I'm not some _pawn_ in your game. Next time you try to manipulate me I'll destroy you. _Do you understand_?" The dog was gaping at her but still managed a nod. Hatori was almost thankful for the disaffected air she'd had with him. If the blood pooling at the edge of his cousin's mouth was any indication, she may well have knocked out a tooth.

The front door was shut with a heavy slam and Rika left both men staring after her, one baffled, the other more stupidly in love with her than he had been before.

Hatori stepped up to Shigure and offered him a hand.

"I _did_ warn you what would happen by meddling_._"

"Piss off Hatori."


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: Final stretch now guys, I hope you're ready! There's about 4 chapters left and I'm working hard on editing them and making sure they'll be ready soon. To everyone that has commented, reviewed, favourited or followed since its inception - thank you so very very much. This might be my first full length ffic that I've been able to complete and having people excited to see where it ends makes it all feel so much more enjoyable.

So once again. Thank you :3

* * *

It had taken time but Shigure had eventually gotten Hatori to sit in his study rather than leave. Albeit, it was done with the man burying his face in his hands and his shoulders laden with the weight of something unsaid. For once in his life the tables had been turned, Shigure sitting back calmly to watch Hatori's rattled composure. Part of him might have relished in it if he didn't love the man as his own brother. Okay, part of him _did_ relish it. A tiny bit. He'd been watching how Rika's orbit had affected everyone for the past year, waiting for someone to be tipped right over the edge. Now that time had come, he found himself a little lost for words. Though he ought not to have been surprised that Hatori was reacting in the way he had. The man had always been selfless to a fault.

"_So_." He drew the word out like taffy, sticky and sweet. Waiting to trap anyone who stepped in it unawares.

"Don't." Hatori's moaned, fingers working against his forehead as though he had a headache brewing. "Don't say a damn thing you dog."

"Oh, we're doing that are we?" Outright venom was a rare trait in the dragon, sarcasm his usual go to. Shigure waved at his face as though he were on the verge of tears, which truth be told – he almost was. His jaw _ached_. "So _mean_. And I'm the one who got punched. Say, why _didn't_ she hit you?"

"You planned this, didn't you?" The accusation was spat at him and Shigure shifted again in his seat, hands open wide as if to acknowledge that yes, he _had_. He had never been shy in admitting his faults. There had been trysts, bad decisions and manipulations over the years with each one meant to lead him closer to what he wanted most of all. That didn't mean he was utterly blind to the other things taking place around him, like the way Hatori had been quicker with his wit and a smile since Rika had wandered back into their lives. Nor was he blind to the fact that reintroducing the Hayashi girl to the fold meant that the zodiacs would be torn. Of course, few had known of the fact that another child had been born to the Sohma head household. Fewer still had been illuminated to the way he, Aya and Tori had felt the birth of another bond - weaker, yes, but another bond all the same. Even though they had only felt it in bursts, it had grown the longer they spent with the girl.

Shigure had wanted to see what might happen if he reignited something of the Hari that had existed when they'd been teenagers. The one who smiled a little more when Rika had been staying at his house. He'd created an excuse for her to stay with the man. From there it had been Rika and Hatori in control, dictating their visits. The slow dance that he and Aya had nudged from innocence to _suggestion_. Even that had taken time. Opportunity.

He knew it was romanticism on his part, to suspect that the curse was trying to manipulate its own end. Why else did all thirteen of them exist right now? What providence had seen to give them two gods in this generation, if not a chance for redemption if the first failed? Fate, it seemed, had been immeasurably cruel too. One half of the god clung to them in desperation. The other had been trying to let them go. If he'd really been motivated, he'd have tried to force Rika and Akito back together. Reignite the tentative sisterhood that had existed in their early youth. The man was too wise to expect _that_ relationship to be repaired overnight. It was easier to ignite love where love already existed, than overwrite resentment. Hatred. Betrayal.

Still, until Rika had her memories there would've always been something to hold them back. Telling Akito she was about to begin that process had been a simple slip of the tongue. Easy, even.

Crossing one leg over the other, Shigure looked out the window of his office and pressed the icepack to his jaw. Hatori was battling his own guilt, that much was evident. It has taken years for him to acknowledge the impact of losing Kana, let alone admit to loving her in the first place.

With Rika came additional complications. Their age gap for one, even if Shigure himself saw no flaw in it. He and Akito shared the same six years and he'd never had a problem with that. The godly connection was unlike anything a regular human could comprehend. There were bonds that existed that could never be put into words, just as it was easier for them to be plagued by doubt and anxiety over losing the very thing that crafted that connection in the first place. Whatever the return of her memories had released for another. Then, of course, there was the fact that Hatori had been the one to remove them in the first place.

When he could no longer bear the silence, Shigure sighed. Loudly. Tested the movement of his jaw with tentative care.

"Are you going to let her leave again?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." Hatori sat upright, a hand still framing his face in a manner Shigure had come to recognise as a means to hide his features. To cloud how another might perceive his humour. Or his pain.

"The way I see it," The dog proceeded, ignoring his friends' complaint and the accompanying withering glare, "You can let her seethe at us all until she just walks away, or you can try talk to her. Win her trust back."

"You didn't _see_ her Shigure. That pain in her face." Hatori's voice hardened. "_You_ set us up with Akito –"

"And _you_ seduced her while she still lacked her memories. Neither of us are innocent here Hatori."

The dragon scoffed his rebuttal.

"I didn't – I _never_!"

"I'm not saying she didn't _like _it. Why else did she keep going back?"

"You don't have a damn clue you bastard."

Shigure had to concede that he didn't know the details of what had transpired the day before or everything preceding it. He _did_ know Akito had made some kind of deal with Rika. A deal that Hatori and everyone else had not been privy to, one that Hatori wouldn't have known to make Rika aware of while restoring her memories. As such, the band aid approach had been required. A means to restore everything. Judging by the anger and Rika's dishevelled appearance when she'd socked him in the jaw – it had worked.

"Then enlighten me."

Hatori groaned. Rocked forward with his face in his hands. Shigure had never seen the other so heart torn. Even after Kana.

"The day Akito gave me the order, Rika soothed _me_. As though she would never bear ill will against me for doing what I had to do." A rustle sounded as Hatori straightened up. "And then she _begged_ me not to do it. To leave her with something. Akito had ordered me. How could I? What could I have _done_?

"How can Rika _forgive_ that? And even if she does, why would she want to choose _me_?"

There was no easy answer. Shigure knew what his gut told him. Rika and Hatori had loved one another longer before either of them had placed it into words. If they ever even had. That didn't make any of it simple or straightforward.

"Don't you deserve to take the chance to see if she wants that? Doesn't _she_?"

"But Akito -,"

"_I'll_ deal with Akito." Shigure leaned forward. Earnest. "_You_ can feel it too Hatori, the way of the bond is failing. At some point, _soon_, this curse will end and we will all have lives to lead outside this compound. Beyond the circle. Tori - can you really face that alone? Do you _want_ to? Do you want _her_ to?"

"_Of course not_."

"Then what is stopping you?"

"The curse." Shigure started to protest but silenced when Hatori continued, "You said it yourself that it's faltering - what if -"

_What if that's the only reason this exists?_

Though his eyes were on the open doorway, Shigure's focus was on listening to Hatori's ragged breaths. He knew the feeling, just as much as he knew Hatori would realise the inevitable too. The curse gave them the tools for love, a leap ahead. It didn't, however, result in blind acceptance. It didn't wholly remove their agency. If it had, _he_ wouldn't have done what he had to hurt Akito. She couldn't have hurt him. The others. Shigure waited, seeking the moment when sanity might drop into the room and offer his friend a boon that was so desperately deserved. He heard the hitch before he saw the change in Hatori's body language, man sitting upright.

"What she needs is a way for her to truly know what she wants." Shigure cocked a dark brow in question.

"And who are you to decide she doesn't already know?"

"I'm not but neither of us can deny that there are pieces of herself she hasn't yet discovered yet. With the truth in her hands she's going to need space. Time. At the end of it she might realise that she doesn't want any of us. That she doesn't want –" _Me_. He heard the word linger again in the room without being spoken. For a man who valued stoicism, the dragon was slowly losing his cool when it came to one woman in particular.

"Why can't she do that with you supporting her? By her side. This sounds like another excuse Tori."

"It's not!" Hatori's words were sharp, defensive. "I want her to experience the things that Akito and I took from her. To have friends she can count upon, a life and love and _innocence_. With me, she will have to look every day at the wounds that this home inflicted. I can't let her guilt consume her like -"

"She's not Kana."

"Don't patronise me. I know she's not. She - she's _summer_. All fire and - and _stubborn_ rage." He sounded almost in awe and his eyes glossed. Shigure's jealousy flared but was outshone by the light flowing through Hatori. "She'll burn down all in her path if she chooses a life built on revenge or guilt. If she stays because she feels she has to. That, or she'll burn herself. I won't, _can't_, let her do that without her living for herself first. I want her to find out who she is without the Sohma's behind her, without all these ties knotted around her. I want her to _choose_ to come back to us, to _me_ because she loves us more than anything else. I want her heart to be full of joy Shigure. Not _duty_."

Shigure smiled. It hurt.

"Then you know what you've got to do."

* * *

Kyo climbed over her on the bed, putting himself between the wall and her body. Pulled Rika into his chest. They lay quiet for an endless stretch, the sound of conversation passing downstairs. Clicking doors signifying Hatori's eventual departure. Rika didn't know how she felt. Confused mostly.

Having all her history back, _all_ of it, was overwhelming. Sickening. Frightening. The anger had slowly abated by having Kyo beside her but not enough for her to settle. To relax.

"Why didn't you tell me about what was going to happen to you next spring?" Rika asked eventually, head rested on the curve of her forearm. Kyo mirrored her position.

"I didn't know how to say it." Kyo's smile was wan. "All that time we were both trying to make amends for your leaving, what kind of person would I be if I ruined it?"

"You wouldn't have _ruined_ it." Rika choked out. "_I_ wouldn't have tried to leave. I've been selfish. So caught up in the prospect of university and escaping all this -," Her hand swept side to side as she spoke until Kyo captured it in his own.

"You didn't know. Don't start beatin' yourself up for stuff like that or I'll get mad." She laughed. Brushed away moisture from the edge of her eyes.

"You're _always_ mad. Except for that night a few weeks ago..." Her mouth pulled to a tight line as a little lightbulb went off. "Is _that_ why you offered me Shishou? So that -" The very thought of it was like sliding needles into her chest. Kyo hadn't protested her leaving because he was angry, but because he'd been _scared_. He'd just gotten back his best friend and she'd thrown a spanner in the works. A year was all they'd have. A year wasn't _enough_. Not enough to make up for the missing time. Six years. The days she'd spent in Hatori's clinic, piecing herself back together ready to pretend that nothing was amiss. Those two weeks in that room. Her stomach gave a nauseated lurch and Rika whimpered.

"Hey." Kyo pulled his hand from hers and rested it against her head. Pulled her to his chest. "It's okay. It'll be okay."

Rika had started her day filled with anger. Shame. Picking through the feelings that had existed, misunderstood, in her body since she'd come back to Tokyo. Before it even. The guilt associated with Kisa and Kyo that had always come back to Akito, to her lies and secrets. Her anger. Her fear. Grief. _Grief_ was the most pervasive. Her heart was breaking inside her chest. What would her world have been if she had stayed? Might there have been an end to all this pain? Would she and Hatori have had time to find their way to one another without fear of Akito? Could she have destroyed that damn room once and for all?

Pushing the ache down, the woman scrubbed at her face. At the tears. She was utterly pathetic. She'd not been able to save any of them.

"Kyo…" He hummed a quiet response. "You can't give up. On the things you might have if we can - if you don't have to -"

"Why the hell should I focus on things that'll never happen?"

"Because then what will you have to remember if you do end up in that room?" Rika clung to his sleeve, "All the horrible things? Or something _good_ and kind that made your time here worth living?"

"So I can remember them while I rot away in that damn place?" Her stomach churned. She wanted to tell him there wasn't a damn thing that Akito could do to go ahead with locking him away, but the words failed against the tip of her tongue.

Rika sniffled. Hated herself for it.

"I'm sorry Kyo," She whispered it against the hand he clamped over her mouth to stop her, words muffled against his palm, "I'm so sorry for leaving you and not saying goodbye. For not explaining it to you -"

Annoyance flashed across his face, swallowed quickly by despair.

"Stop apologising _please_."

"No." She spoke it defiantly. Her feet ached with blisters. Knuckles were starting to bruise. There were a million things she couldn't deal with or amend in this moment, but this, _this_ she could. "I owe you some kind of explanation."

And so, the words crept free. Little by little. Kyo had been there the day she'd promised Akito to be the outlet for her violence though he hadn't fully understood it then. All of the recollections were starkly outlined against her happier moments. The denials of her mother. Every broken bone and bruise. How she'd tried to take away the violence Akito was carrying deep within and channel it into something kinder. How _stupid_ she had been to think she could _fix_ her or keep the others safe. How naïve.

Deep down, she knew _why_ she'd done it. The bond. That impossible feeling that had left her with her guilt for all those years because she'd run from the connection. Severed it in a crude way. Hatori had been right. They _were_ cursed. What other reason was there to keep going back to Akito as she had, expecting any kind of different resolution?

The funniest part of all was as her anger petered down into a dull ache at the back of her mind, clarity grew. Akito was never going to change while the Zodiac curse existed. The more they all fought against her, the harder she clung to them. Even now, Rika could feel it lingering within her. Urging her not to _betray_ Akito. Not to _hurt _Akito. She wanted to ask where the feelings would be reciprocated. When Akito would return the favours that their connection asked of them.

When she'd finished speaking, exhausted, Kyo's arms tightened around her. Kept her close to his chest. She could feel his form vibrating with anger, the heat of his skin. Palms spread flat against her back.

He was working hard to keep his temper in check, but when he spoke it wasn't righteous fury that came out.

"Seems we both have a penchant for making dumb deals with that damn Akito." Rika pushed back; brow furrowed.

"What?"

"Never mind."

"No, I _do_ mind. What the hell did you do?!" Trapped between Rika and the wall, he struggled to roll onto his back until she gave him the space to do so.

"Akito agreed that if I beat Yuki, then I wouldn't have to -,"

"_Hell_ Kyo." Rika buried her face behind her hands, eyes closed. This was too much on top of all the rest, but it added definition. To the fights. His never-ending diligence when it came to training. Except she could see beyond it. Rika hadn't fought Yuki in years, but the boy had been a natural. Whatever it was he possessed, neither Rika nor Kyo could match it. "I'll spar with you. Every day if we need to. But that can't be the only thing – it _shouldn't_ be our only way to stop this."

His laugh was low. She didn't have the energy left to call him out on how depreciating it sounded, or the chills it send down her body. Yawning, Rika turned back to him. Tucked a palm against his cheek.

"I love you," She bowed her head forward to press against his, the words slurring at the edges, "Even if you've always been an insufferable idiot. And I'll do _everything_ I can to keep us spending every second we can together."

His grin she felt beneath her fingertips and the warmth of his sigh on her face.

"Love you too. Now get some rest."

/

She woke with one of Kyo's arms wrapped around her waist, the sensation comforting and suffocating all at once. Early morning sunlight streamed in the window, the remains of last nights take-out stacked neatly on Kyo's desk. They'd spoken until she had passed out, woken to eat and then passed out again. Slowly, Rika began to feel more _human_.

Pieces of her were uniting themselves together, the child and the adult aligning like an old puzzle. Some parts were battered. Torn. Yet they were still able to fit. In the middle of it all was something that still escaped her now. A facet that wanted, _demanded_ to be felt.

Wiping sleep from her eyes, Rika's stirring awoke the teen beside her and in stretching released her from his grasp. It wasn't quite sunrise yet, but the sky held traces of red in it. A good day ahead. Then why, she wondered, did she feel so rotten?

"How're you feelin'?" Kyo's voice was husky with sleep and his moving weight tipped the blankets away from her.

"Sore." A beat. "Less enraged."

"I seriously doubt that."

His huffed laughter made them both shake. Rika batted him away and sat upright. Kyo rose beside her, bumping her shoulder with his own.

"You want to run today?" She shook her head and lifted her feet as explanation. A cursory examination of the skin there showed the blisters that had popped, and those that hadn't. Redness was interspersed with swollen tissue. She wouldn't be running for days at least. Crossing her legs, she could feel she needed a bath. More sleep. A freaking _holiday_.

Rubbing at her eyes, she could feel Kyo holding his breath. A question. It clogged up the air in the room. Finally, she couldn't bear the tension anymore.

"Spit it out Kyo."

"Not that I'm complainin' or such, but why come to me? Why didn't you stay with Hatori this time?" Rika's body went still, shoulders knotting backward.

"I didn't – I -," Her voice trailed off, the words not coming easily. Putting the betrayal she felt to words was difficult. Extrapolating Shigure's part in Akito showing up at the lake house had been simple once her memories had returned. He had _always_ gone to Akito first, even when they were children. Most of her youth seemed peppered with the man. Hatori however – _Hatori_ had heard her begging and still taken away every trace of the Sohma's. He'd seen her bowed, and bent, and _broken_, and done little more than piece her back together for the next time around. Until he hadn't. He'd cut her loose.

What was to say that the _next_ time Akito lost her damn mind, it wouldn't happen again?

"Do you still love him too?" She flushed violently to the roots of her hair, twisting to look at Kyo properly.

"What are you -?"

"I'm not dumb Rika. You loved him as a kid, you told me that. You think I don't know how to recognise you falling in love again?"

"I'm not – I _wasn't_ –" Blustering, Rika gave up. Dug her hands into her head and bowed forward. "I _can't_."

"Why not? You're telling me to be happy, so why the hell won't you take that advice too?"

She wanted to say that he couldn't understand. Couldn't _fathom_ what she was feeling. His first love was Tohru. Someone so innocent she made Rika feel sullied at times. Hatori wasn't a clean slate. Rika had stepped closer into his orbit knowing that.

"It's too complicated."

"Since when did you ever take the easy way?" Huffing, she looked at him over the line of her arm. "Maybe, just talk to the guy. When you've cooled down a bit. You more than anyone knows what it is to be bound by the dumb things Akito says, and both of us know there's always more to things than it seems at the start."

"Are you giving me your _blessing_?" A fair brow rose, mouth twitching into what might have been a smile. This was the closest either of them had gotten to discussing love lives since they'd been kids and the topic was riddled with pitfalls now. Kyo was in love, as much as he may not admit it to himself and when he finally did, he would have to reconcile that love with the possibility of spending the rest of his life trapped in a cage. Rika was – hell, she didn't know what she was. Not yet. Not now.

But maybe later, she would.


	33. Chapter 33

"Isuzu," Rika's voice felt too loud in the empty hallway of the dojo, her knuckles drawing briefly over the lintel, "Mind if I come in?"

It was long past time that the pair meet officially, although truth be told they already _had_. Tohru had made efforts to include both women in conversation and events as and when she could and had Rika not skipped out on the New Year's celebrations here, she might even have had the time to speak to the other properly before now. In spite of this, they'd hardly ever been in a shared space alone until today. Such things tended to make frank discussion a little complicated.

Not that Rika had been ready for it. Trying to sift through her own fragile state of mind, let alone creating the bandwidth to process anyone else's trauma – it had kept her from being willing to connect with the other woman. _Now_, she felt a little sturdier. If not still _utterly_ lost.

"Knock yourself out." Rika stepped into the room. Tugged the door shut behind her. Part way anyways. Since getting her own memories back, it always felt a little difficult to willing shut herself into a confined space. She saw the action echoed in Rin's next movement towards the adjoining porch, the door sliding open to let in some of the cool early summer air.

Passing the table, she saw a notebook. Pens. Haru had mentioned something about Rin having a penchant for art and Rika, never one to possess a singular artistic bone in her _life_, was intrigued. The origami, in her view, didn't count. She needed deft fingertips and an ability to put up with constant papercuts. It was hardly putting pen to paper and transcribing the world to a page.

"What were you working on?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

Rather than labour the point, Rika took the warning and filed it away. Sat down in the gap between the dark-haired woman and the sliding door. It was simpler to let the silence linger for a while, Rika picking lint from her jeans and curling knees beneath her chin. When it had festered long enough, she chanced a look at the other.

"I won't waste your time but I wanted to say…" A breath, "…The cat's room, if you ever need to talk about it. I understand." Rin had gone too still. Her head didn't move an inch and Rika didn't dare shattered the taut sense of calm in the air. If she had to stay on a tightrope for a while, then so be it. Her own eyes had closed, soft wind tugging at the loose hairs curling her face and minutes slipping by at the _tick-tick-tick_ of Rika's watch.

"You know the worst thing -," Rin eventually spoke and when Rika looked up, she noted her body had never moved from its rigid position, "Is that I would've gone back. I still would if it would make Akito promise not to hurt Haru. How messed up is that?"

Whether the question was rhetorical or not wasn't answered until Rin turned dark eyes her direction. "_Isn't_ it messed up?!"

"It is." Rika exhaled sharply. "I feel it too, that _need_ to throw myself at Akito's feet. To right wrongs that I'm not even sure _were_ wrong." When she defied Akito - it was an itch she couldn't scratch, bugs sliding beneath her skin and picking away at her internal organs piece by piece. "Ever since I got my memories back, it's been an endless song in my head. Do not _defy_ Akito. Do not _betray_ Akito."

The Zodiac's were all Prometheus tied to the rock. The eagles, Akito and the healing liver, the bond. Only while they embodied immortal spirits, what lived at their core was simply, uncomplicatedly, _human_. Human's weren't immortal. They couldn't regrow a liver again and again and again without some scarring taking place and for the likes of Rika and Rin, those scars ran _deep_.

"It's not even Akito either." Rika continued after a beat. "While I was in that house, I suffered sixteen rib fractures. A broken radius. One blown iris. Since I was seven years old, I've had stitches thirty-seven times. Been bruised even more than that.

"My mom thought I was the clumsiest kid in the world. Every day, she packed me off to the main house because she believed more in Akito being the rightful benevolent leader of the family than what I tried to tell her. She loved me, but she loved Akira's legacy more. What kind of parent _does_ that?" Strain pulled at her vocal cords and Rika blinked away moisture. It wasn't just her own mother. It was Kyo's father. Momiji's mother. Rin's parents. Yuki's parents. All of them were as twisted and screwed up as each other. "There are endless facets of the Sohma system that is _wrong_. Facets that need to be changed."

It was the first time she'd fully made that admittance and was surprised by how hollow it made her feel. She'd spent months trying to be worthy of the Sohma's but what had they done to be worthy of _her_? Not Kyo of course, but the system of the family. The hierarchy. Each part of it had been designed in a way to remind her of her unworthiness. She wasn't a true Zodiac, so she gained none of their benefits but all their pain. Her mother had been the sister of the head of the family and all that had earned _Rika_ was the role of lifelong _punching_ bag.

How was any of it fair? How was any of it meant to sit easy on her shoulders? Worse, how was she to even consider _forgiveness_? No matter what anyone said, Akito had always had a choice. Akito had _chosen_ to turn on her dearest friend and ally and twist their relationship into one of the powerful and the weak. Of abuser and victim.

Rika _hated_ that she'd ever been a victim.

Worse, she hated that she'd ever believed she'd been anything _else_.

"I can't forgive Akito. I can't just _forget it_." Rin's voice made her flinch and Rika stared at the other woman a long moment.

She reached out with her palm facing upwards.

"We don't have to" Her expression tightened. "And no one can make us."

Rin slipped her fingers between Rika's. Briefly. Just a fleeting touch. Something unifying. _Safe_. Retracted them just as quick. Finally, Rika stood and started for the door again.

"You can talk to me too," Rin said to the room between them and the blonde found herself looking over her shoulder into an expression of torn sincerity, "About that room. If you ever need to."

Rika smiled. Nodded.

"Thank you."

* * *

It took a moment for her to compose herself in the hallway, Rika leaning against the closed door long enough for Kunimitsu to poke his head out the nearest door.

"You good?"

"Perfect."

"Kazuma would like to see you in the tearoom before you go if you've got time?" Rika nodded and followed the older man towards the room in question, willing away the tension in her limbs as she did so. Coming to meet Rin had been difficult enough. Any kind of discourse with Kazuma would slay her altogether. Rika felt like she was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel since getting her memories back. Kisa had stayed over the night before as they'd reminisced.

Kyo had dragged her out of bed to take a run that morning, letting her off lightly with a short 3 miles before accepting her defeat. Her legs still felt heavy. Though she denied it, getting her memories back had taken a physical toll too. Sleep was more difficult. Restless. It was the nights tucked against Kyo that helped her settle best but Rika resisted using that too frequently. For one, punching Shigure had only bought her a certain length of silence. For another, she didn't want to scare off Tohru. Not when Kyo only had so much time to spend with the girl.

Rubbing at her face, Rika shut the door to the tearoom behind her after greeting Kazuma. Lowered herself opposite him at the table.

"You look tired." Her mouth quirked up at one side.

"Pleasure to see you too Sensei."

"It's always a pleasure Rika, I just worry you're not getting enough rest. Golden week is meant to offer a break is it not?"

She shrugged.

"It's hard to relax when there's so much going on."

"Like recovering your memories?" He smiled at her flinch, pouring out tea into a cup and passing it her way. "Hatori and I have spoken quite a bit since Rin moved in here. He's very worried about you. Said you haven't been in touch since he brought you home."

"It's not a requirement to speak to him." There was a touch of defensiveness to her rebuttal and Kazuma raised his hand to indicate he'd meant no ill will. At least that was how she perceived it. It dropped her hackles a fraction. Enough for Rika to cover up her frown with a sip from her tea.

"It's not. It is, however, foolish to turn away an ally when they've tried to do nothing but support us."

Her laugh was sharp enough to slosh the liquid in her cup, amber eyes widening as she shook her head.

"Where was that support when I was eight and getting the hell beaten out of me at every turn?"

"Right here." Kazuma answered without hesitation, staggering her response. "In Hatori's home. Did you never wonder why our doors were _always_ opened to you? Why there were sleepovers and break times offered that far outreached normal healing time? I was the grandchild of the cat Rika, in a family like ours the power that gives me is minimal at best. Not least when I came up against Ren or Akito. Or your mother." She swallowed deeply. "I had to pick my battles and I so chose to protect Kyo, but where I could I fought for you too. Just as Hatori did and his father did.

"I know you're upset. That's only natural. But I urge you to remember that there are tiers to the Sohma power. Akito and Ren, understandably control the majority of it, but those who were born Zodiac chopped and changed with each generation. Not everyone understood it, but what they _could_ comprehend was that their window of opportunity to gain power would ebb and flow with those who lived within the estate, and without. There was little fear for your mother and you while you were housed internally but after, there was little _care _for what you did. Before your family left, I saw that affect your mother deeply. Enough to overlook many a transgression she once would have rallied against."

"It's not fair." It was juvenile to live in a world of _fair_ or _unfair_ but it was the easiest summation that came to mind in that moment.

"It isn't. Nor is it right." Kazuma paused to drink a mouthful of tea. "It is the same reason other Sohma's allowed Kyo's true father to be as cruel and spiteful as he is. That Yuki's parents ignored what was happening to him. It is a remarkably difficult thing to fight against the way we've been raised, and harder still to rewrite the status quo. Especially hard, I imagine, if you feel bound to the person who has done wretched things to you."

Her mouth thinned; eyes narrowed. The accusation was off her tongue before she could stop it.

"You heard what I said to Rin."

"No," He shook his head, "I've just been around long enough now to know you. To know this family. None of us forgive easily, and in many ways, we have not earned that forgiveness yet. Myself included."

Rika frowned and left her cup back to the table, empty.

"You've done nothing wrong."

"I'm glad you feel that way, but I assure you even my own hands aren't clean. There are those of us who take desperate measures when we have to. Even if those measures are cruel." Kazuma leaned forward and rested his elbows against the table top. Knotted his hands together. "Even so, I hope they might be hands you feel you can trust. My door has always been open to you Rika, and with things starting to resolve somewhat I wanted to say that if you ever need a parent. In _any_ capacity. I would be honoured to be here for you."

Rika blinked ferociously against the moisture in her eyes. Kazuma had always been one to take in strays and what was she now but another one?

"I don't wish to replace your parents. I could never do that but there are things that are going to change for you over the next few years and those things won't be always be simple or straightforward. All I want you to know is that with Kyo as my son, _you_ have always been part of this family too. You always will be."

Tears spilled over to her cheeks, Rika hastily wiping them away. It was easier to look out the door into the garden than meet his eye as she wept.

"I won't let them lock him away." She said finally, back of her hand drawn along her jaw. It came away damp. "I'm going to change the Sohma system Sensei. Somehow. Some _way_. Will you help me?"

Kazuma rose and crouched at her side. Tucked a hand against her cheek.

"In any way that I can."

* * *

Tohru found her that evening, curled into herself on the roof of Shigure's house. Head bowed between her knees as though trying to find a breath that refused to surface. Relief that _couldn't _come. At the footsteps she angled her head towards the sky, watching the way lights danced and flickered. A plane streaking by here. Satellites rolling there. Since she'd returned from the dojo her mind had been a whirlwind. Weighing up options and just as quickly striking them down.

"Are you feeling okay?" Tohru pressed a hand to her forehead as if to check for a temperature, Rika's gaze sliding towards the girl.

"I don't know if I've been okay for a really long time."

Shingles slid against one another in a faint crackle until both of them fell still.

"Kyo, he shared -," A hesitation, "Uo and Hana were worried about you. I was thinking maybe, if you were up for it, we could all do a sleepover sometime soon again?"

Rika had given Kyo the all clear to share her story with Tohru, if for no other reason than it spared her repeating the tale more times than she could bear.

"Did you tell them?"

"Oh, of course not. Hana, I think she sensed something. She called earlier asking if you'd been hurt. That she could feel it." Laughing, Rika pushed the heel of her hand against her forehead.

"She is _so weird_." Tohru didn't agree but gave a half-hearted giggle. Laying back to properly see the stars coming to life, Rika had to consider how lucky she'd been. Had Uo not approached her that day, she might have gone through Kaibara without making friends. Had Tohru not been part of that group, would she have crossed paths with the Sohma's beyond cursory hellos? More than that, how many days had she spent picking food up at street vendors with Uo at her side and just _living_? In Okinawa that hadn't even felt like an option.

In Okinawa, Rika had been a solitary planet. Her dad used to tell her she'd been so involved, so _happy_ during their first year there but it had been an illusion. A means to cover up the strange emptiness in her gut. It made her think that somehow, she'd have found her way back here regardless. To the Sohma's. To her past. A nasty part of her cried out that it'd have happened faster had Hatori not played roadblock. Rika felt the accusation like a knife twisted between her ribs because she knew that while it was true, it wasn't the _whole_ truth. He'd been contending with her losing her father. With the damage recollecting that room could do. It was going to take years to process all of it. Even her parent's deaths still felt raw, sitting dormant until they rose up like vengeful angels to remind her of the loneliness she ought to be feeling. The regret over freezing out her father when he had only ever tried to fit her life into a non-Sohma mould. Rika scrubbed at her face. Groaned.

Was this who she wanted to be? Someone who looked back full of spite. Or someone who, like the girl beside her, tried to see the brightness in the world. Not only seeing it but _embracing _it.

A million horrible things had happened to her at Akito's hands but having met Ren and been manipulated by the woman – could she fully blame the god for being a little twisted. A lot broken? Or Hatori. Hatori who from his teens had been learning to pull apart other's memories and take them away. Who had to do it for the woman he had loved?

"Akito," She turned to look at the brunette, brows furrowing with surprise that Tohru had somehow known where her mind had wandered to, "You know she's really a woman don't you?"

Rika nodded.

"How scary that must have been growing up. To always be uncertain of who you are and mask your identity. My mom never had to hide who she was. Never tried to change to be something different. Sometimes, I think you act like her." Swallowing, Rika waited for Tohru to continue. "You came along to our school and knew you were going to do your best and here you are, going to University. You lost your dad but you went back to training and school and even changed your Doctor so you could unburden Hatori once you felt well enough. You could have given up so many times. You would've been allowed to, but something always made you get back up. Something was always worth fighting for. Isn't that a good thing to have?"

She didn't say that Rika's reasons to fight had always been selfish. She didn't say that getting back up wouldn't have been achieved if she hadn't had Kyo and Hatori's constant vigilance in making her address the things affecting her both physically and mentally. That the bond, as complicated and twisted and strange as it was, had been the reason she felt more at home than she had in years because she was able to embrace her Zodiac's. To hold them. Love them. Support them. Have all their support in return. Well, perhaps not Hiro's but she was still working on that.

It was funny, she thought, how desperately Akito had held onto her Zodiac's. Using fear as a weapon to bend them to her will. Rika didn't think of herself as a winner, not when so many of them had lost – but she _had_ won something. People who loved her as much as she loved them. Even those outside the Zodiac, like Tohru and Uo and Hana. Kazuma. Had she stood up to Akito as a child, or more, had she shown her the strength in firm kindness – might it all have been different?

"Tohru..." She spoke after they'd been sitting in silence for some time, unsure what it was she was even about to say but knowing it was now or never, "Could I ask you a favour?"

The Honda girl agreed, sitting back on her heels awaiting the full request. Rika could feel the roof beneath her, uncomfortably angled against her legs and feet but sitting up there helped her feel like the world was bigger than her own problems. She could feel closer to Kyo here too. Given the comfort she reaped from him and the lingering distrust in her chest – anything that helped was worthwhile.

"Akito - what she's done to me," Sitting up, her chin bowed forward to rest on her knees, "I don't think I could ever understand it.

I mean, on the one hand I get that she thought I'd take them away from her. Undermine her whole existence by being better or kinder or more loved. I think that's why she let me get close to Kyo. To prove that any dalliance with him was going to backfire." A power play. Sometimes it felt like all the damn Sohma's were playing a brutal game of chess that only left them all bloodied and broken.

"If Hatori had given me back my memories earlier, I would've just been consumed by my anger. The fear. I'd have brought the whole thing down in the name of righteousness."

A large, vindictive, part of her wouldn't have cared who she burned in the process. She still _wanted_ to bring it down. She'd just figured out that razing the ground to do so wouldn't hurt anyone but herself. Rika had meant what she'd said all those times before. As much as it was crooked, messed up and _aching_ – she _wanted_ to be a Sohma.

"I know now. All of it. Not just the things I was told as a child but the rest of it. The truth and the pain and the scared people all living in this damn curse." Her eyes flickered towards Tohru, noting how rigid she sat. Every facet of her being was turned on Rika like a searchlight.

"I'm not ready to forgive and forget it. I'm not sure if I ever _will_ be able to. I should've had a cousin. Or a _sister_. Instead I grew up the way I did. But you can, or I think you can -" Tohru looked confused, and truth be told Rika _was_ confused so she tried to elaborate the best that she could. To lay it out without turning Tohru into some pawn. "_Maybe_ you can be the bridge to Akito. The hand that offers forgiveness. I know you would anyways but when, if, you do, can you think of me? Of the day when I can do it too?"

Tohru nodded. Reached out and took her hands.

"I can try. For you I'll try." Rika's throat felt dry. Tight. Even this much was hard, but it was right. If she went around hating Akito for the rest of her life, then what would it ever solve? "But Rika, just because you've had bad stuff, it doesn't mean all of it was that way, right? Without those experiences - you wouldn't be the person you are. Love the people you love. Uo, Hana and I wouldn't have our dear friend and Kyo wouldn't have you here to sometimes knock some sense into him."

Tohru's hand tightened over her palm.

"Hatori smiles more these days. Shigure is a little less, _strange_. Even Yuki seems to enjoy when you challenge him over our homework assignments. You could have had a different, better life maybe but I'm very grateful I got to meet you in this one."

Rika sniffled, pressing her head against their linked hands. Somehow, without even trying, Tohru had made her feel settled again. Ready to accept whatever might come next. She could see why Kyo had fallen so terribly in love with the girl. Tohru Honda was a secret weapon against misery by the sheer glow of her optimism.

"I love you all." She meant it. Right down to her marrow, Rika loved every part of her found family. Uo's brash temper and Hana's strangeness. Tohru's idle simplicity that hid immense perception below. She loved the way Kyo had made her his sister, how Kazuma not only accepted it but embraced it. She loved Yuki's laughter and his deftness with his vegetable garden, and how Shigure fought with every asset he had to turn the world into one he wished to live in. Even if it earned him a sock to the jaw now and again.

Most of all, most _complicated_ of all, she loved Hatori.

She loved how his hands lingered over shoulders when she read from his textbooks for him. The way he shifted his position to accommodate her sleeping on his lap. How his eyes lit up when she entered a room, or as that smile she'd come to recognise as hers and hers alone started its ascent along his lips.

She loved how he'd tried to grant the right tools to reconcile her childhood with reality, even if it hadn't worked. That the origami skill he'd left her with had granted her something of him to hold onto even when she felt most alone. The paper folding could be thought juvenile or strange but in the context of their entire lives Hatori had offered her a reminder of how to process her fears and worries. To place them someplace safe until she was ready to face them.

Oh.

_Oh shit. _

He _had_ given her a means to remember him.

_You Hari, leave me you._

"Rika," Tohru reached for her, "Are you okay?"

_Was she?_

"I -," She clutched at her head, the dredges of one final memory fighting to make itself known. It had been hovering there beneath the surface for days.

* * *

_Rika trudged through the garden; mouth dragged downwards into a frown. She'd been sent out to check there were no stay items missing from the packing that had been done by the maids. She'd been shaken awake before sunrise, her dad telling her they were going to be leaving shortly. Rika had been baffled, more so when the man had reminded her this had been in planning for weeks. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't quite believe him. _

_Her mom had been crying. Kimiko was also pretending she was fine as she bustled about the house, but the signs were there. Red rimmed eyes. Sadness, immeasurable. Cloying. While Rika detested being ordered out of the house on a weird errand it was undeniable that being outdoors was preferable to remaining within. _

_Shifting aside some bamboo and unearthing an old sock that must have been blown from the washing line, a creak drew her attention upwards. _

_The back gate had been pushed open to reveal an unfamiliar man standing at the edge of the path. Standing upright, she brushed down the edges of her shirt as she did so. Though his face seemed sombre, he was very cute. Rika banished the thought as quickly as it rose, realising that she'd been staring. _

"_Can I help you Mr-?"_

_Up close he looked younger than she'd first thought. Hesitant. He wore a simple button-down shirt and slacks, and the shadows under his eyes like an accessory to match. Whatever had brought him here had been driven by indecision - although Rika couldn't have said how she knew as much. A feeling, perhaps. Closer still, she thought she recognised the emotion locked under the surface of his eyes. Sad. He was so very very sad. _

"_Ah yes, I wanted to drop off a departure gift. A token for your parents." A shift in his movement highlighted the presence of a small bag in his hands that he passed to her. Rika stopped trying to puzzle him out, distracted. "It's just a good luck charm really." _

"_Should I get them?"_

"_No," He shook his head, "I really must be going." _

_Despite his words he lingered, the grey-blue of his eyes catching in the early morning sunlight. She'd never liked sunrise much but to see a colour like that, she thought it could be worth it. Particularly when they looked so soft. A shock of dark hair glinted almost blue to complete the picture and Rika, taking a good look at his face, felt her breath catch in her chest. _

"_Should you?" She asked, resting the bag against her knees. _

"_Yes." His hand moved to his pocket, coming out with a last item. An origami dragon. "I heard you liked these things. It could be silly but –" _

_Rika's mouth formed a small o of surprise, dropping the bag gently by her feet so she could take the item. It was sculpted from green and silver paper, small lines creating the scales that traced its form. _

"_I love origami." She breathed it, fingertips tracing over the delicate structure with barely controlled awe. "Thank you." _

"_It's a small thing." He smiled. It was an impossibly sad kind of smile. It made her heart flutter within her chest. "A token. Maybe within it, someday, you might find something useful."_

_Rika nodded, unable to keep the grin off her face. About to ask more about who he was and how he knew her parents, a shout from her father caught her attention to say the packing was finally done. When she turned back, the mysterious man was gone. Rika pocketed the dragon, grabbed the bag and discarded the sock. By the time the car was loaded, and her mother was openly weeping again, Rika had put the information aside to share later. A later that never arrived._

* * *

Rika bolted upright on the roof, foot slipping from the haste with which she moved. Tohru reached out to grab at her shirt, alarm in her voice.

"What is it?!"

"I have to go to my room." Scrambling across the tiles and down the ladder, Rika crashed into the wall hard enough for the _thud_ to echo. Shigure gave a yelp of worry from the floor below at the sound but she found it hard to care. Her only thought were the boxes stacked against the wall of her room. After she'd cleaned out the apartment, her father's clothing had all been donated and what Rika had kept were the trinkets. The memories. Financial records. The first box turned up empty. As did the second.

In the third was an old tin that she'd had as a child. She hadn't looked to it in years, figuring some things didn't need to be dredged up all that often. The dragon sat inside it, shoved to a corner. A little battered. Its wing broken.

"Rika?"

Tohru stood in the doorway, Shigure behind her.

Tossing aside the tin to her bed, Rika unfurled the folded edges. The writing inside was faded. She recognised the hand.

_I don't know if you'll ever look at this, but should you need a friend my line is always open. Your Hari, Always._

The air from her lungs released in a sharp _whoosh_, and worse the room was lacking oxygen. That had to be why she couldn't breathe. Could hardly think. A dragon. A little dragon. That damn sentimental _idiot. _Tohru was at her side as her body wavered, anxious questions peppering what little focus she had.

"He did try," She gasped it free, eyes wide, "_He did try_."


	34. Chapter 34

She'd wanted to find Hatori.

That had been her goal. Get to the house. Find Hatori.

_Talk_.

Figure this out once and for all.

She'd stood in the garden of her old home, finding the places she and Kyo had etched their names in the woodwork. The panels they'd broken while trying to spar. Inside the compound, the trees had turned green. Flowers bloomed. It was an odd feeling to look around and see her memories laid out easily. Amongst the good were the broken bones. The bruises. A patch of stone where she'd lain while running a fever, trying to find something to break the heat below her skin. Hidden away was the cat's room. That dark place that haunted her dreams again.

It was the screaming that caught her attention. Drew her away from Hatori's home.

Following voices, she wound up at the main house. In time to see Akito and Ren in a stand-off just off the main path, electricity sparking between them. It was a wonder more people hadn't come to investigate. Not that, she noticed, anyone who _had_ come had decided to intervene. A cluster of maids were at the end of the hallway, faces hidden behind her palms.

"I don't know why you're so worked up." Ren's tone was clipped, her aura as malignant and discomforting as it had been while Rika spoken to her all those times. From the end of the corridor it was plain to see how the woman loomed over her child. Akito, in turn, looked defiant. _Terrified._ "They're going to leave you no matter what way you throw your body around."

"Shut up!" Rika heard the hitch. The pain. Nothing could have prepared her for the instinct that rose, a clawing pain below her skin that told her she had to stop it. Soothe it.

"You accuse me of seduction, but like speaks to like does it not?" Ren smiled, expression brittle and icy, "Though what they'd see in a boy like you is beyond me."

Rika acted before she could stop herself, body flung between mother and child.

"Back off." She shoved at Ren's shoulder, pushing the woman back into the room she'd been relegated to. Threw a venomous look towards the maids who had been standing idle nearby, tittering and fretting like incoherent fools. "Get her away from Akito. _Now_." Her voice lifted an octave. "I said _move_."

Having her back to Akito felt like a death sentence, the prospect sliding down her spine in an icy rush but somehow putting Ren behind her seemed worse. Maids had bustled into action, the sliding door separating them from the older woman. Allowing Rika, a chance to turn.

"I don't need your _help!" _Spittle flew as Akito lunged at her; a hand raised to strike her before she could stop it. The blow landed, stinging her cheek and before another could drop Rika pinned Akito's hands to her side. Walked the woman backwards until she was flush with the wall.

"That's enough! No more!"

"How dare you! How _dare you -_" Rika suddenly saw what she'd missed all those times in the past. Illumination landed on her shoulders painfully, her cousin captured in her grasp. Akito wasn't an outright monster. Cruel. Yes. Possessive. _Of course_. Abusive? There was no doubt in Rika's mind.

Underneath it was a frightened child, someone who has been promised greatness and love and given only fear. Someone who had claimed Rika's generosity as a last chance and then been consumed by the poison her own mother had spilled. How many days had Ren repeated that ridiculous claim that Akira and Kimiko were lovers? Rika, their child. How many _nights_ had Akito gone to sleep believing that someone she had thought an ally was simply lying in wait to claim all that she had been promised? It explained too much. Not even factoring into account the confusion of her gender. The weight of being the head of such an enormous family.

All of it set out on paper would've constituted a therapist's wet dream. Why Akito's violence had grown until it hit Rika's breaking point. How her decision to go had been twisted and warped into something senseless when it should have been an opportunity for amends. Why Akito had taken such glee in taunting her that day in the shopping mall all those years ago.

"You cannot try to take them again. I won't let you. I'll kill you!" Akito's voice lost all sense of control while Rika stared her down. The fracture deepened in her chest as her memories gained clarity. Akito was only ever a few months older than herself. Akito had been promised the _world_. There were people nearby, listening. Kureno had appeared. On his heels, _Hatori_.

The bond might be crying at her to offer this woman kindness. Forgiveness. _Love_.

The bond _wasn't_ her master.

Truth would be what Akito got. Truth was what was deserved.

"I never wanted that." She spoke slowly, shoving Akito's hands against her body so that the other couldn't lash out. Couldn't reap more damage than had already been done. "I did it for _you_. To be a part of this family. Akito I wanted to be your _sister_. Not just because my mom wanted it but because I _loved_ you. I'd have let you beat me until there was nothing left for me if it persevered your innocence. I'd have done it."

Rika felt Hatori's hand on her shoulder, trying to pull her back. To release their God. Glancing from the corner of her eye, Kureno's face was deathly pale. Nervous. None of them had ever known the truth of it all.

"The Zodiac, they weren't _my_ obsession. I don't – I've never wanted or needed them like you do. Not their love, their prostration or their obedience." Pressure lifted from her shoulder; Rika grew painfully aware of the absence of Hatori's touch. "I only ever wanted a family. _My_ family. I don't need the things you do to survive. Whatever this bond is, whatever way I've been joined to this curse - I don't _want _it. You can have them. I let you have them the day I promised to protect them from you, and I let you have them when I got my memories wiped. _You're_ the one that's allowed this to spin so far out of control."

Akito, silenced by her words, let her dark eyes go wide. Angry. Scared too. Impossibly so.

"You promised! You promised you'd leave and never come back! You're the one that broke the agreement!"

"And you didn't?" Rika shot back vehemently, "You were meant to be their _god_, not their abuser. Look at them. At all of us! How much blood needs to be spilled before you learn that _none_ of this was worth it?"

"Stop! You're _lying_."

"I'm not!" The heel of her hand hit the woodwork in her anger, Akito flinching from the touch. "If I'd known then... if you had told me what your mother was doing - I'd have been more than your damn punching bag. I'd have been your _sister_. I'd have loved you no matter what. I _did _love you. I'd have _helped_-,"

"No one can help! No one knows or understands except _me_. They're mine. They're mine and mine alone!"

"Only because you made it that way." Akito recoiled from the words and Rika released her arms. Stepped back. "_You_ did this. If you don't stop it, if you don't _fix _it. You're going to lose everything. They'll all hate you. Or pity you. Do you just want to be pitied? How is that love? How is it _real_?"

"Get out! Get out of my house!"

"I was leaving." Rika stepped back, hands shaking against her sides. Staff had flooded into the space between them, but Rika raised her voice to be heard over the din. "I would have been your sister if you'd let me. I didn't recognise the spite back then or know why you thought I would betray you. I hope someday you can do something that isn't driven by fear Akito. I really do."

Turning her back on the chaos, Rika didn't need to see how Kureno embraced her. How Hatori checked for injuries. How they both soothed her while Rika's heart raced. How her nausea peaked. Adrenaline coursed through her, years of bottled terror and pain released in one fell swoop. Her hand lifted to trace her cheek, the skin still smarting from the blow. It was damp, and for the first time, she realised there was blood. Akito must have used nails. Scratched at her.

She'd only made it as far as the main courtyard, throwing up into a flower bed, before Hatori caught her. Quietly took her hand and led her back to his house. His silence was damning. It was the first time since the lake house that she had seen him. Inside his front door, he immediately dismissed the maid. Left Rika standing in the small hallway, her hands wrung against her chest. The little dragon buried in her pocket felt like it was burning a hole there, but now didn't seem to be the right time to address _that_ revelation.

Minutes passed before he returned, lingering at the corner.

"Come on."

She released a terse breath, kicking her shoes off and padding after him into the living room. Taking a seat by the table and bowl he'd set up. The man had disappeared again so Rika rinsed out the little cloth in warm water and used it to dab at the sticky traces of blood she could feel. It stung desperately. Without hint of apology.

Hatori returned and gave an exasperated sigh.

"You didn't need to do that."

He tugged the washcloth away from her face and used the back of his hand to tilt her chin to and fro, examining the damage wrought.

"Is she -?" The words snagged themselves in her throat. Caring about Akito, as much as it was rooted, _rotting_, deep in her nature, was still foreign. It warred against the parts of herself that still feared the other woman. One triumphant interaction wasn't going to wash away that history.

"She'll be fine." It was unusually clipped for Hatori, and he stole the cloth from her hands to continue cleaning the wound. Rika watched him carefully, unsure about this sudden mood. He should have been with Akito, not here. He'd chosen to come for her. So why did there feel like an endless void swelling between them. Closing her eyes, she almost missed his whispered question. "Did you mean it?"

"Which part?"

"That you never wanted us?" Rika winced, either from the ache in her jaw or the bluntness. Possibly both.

"I meant it in the sense that I don't want to control you. I don't want -," Her hands moved as she searched for the right thing to say. The honest thing. "I don't want you all to love me because of that bond. I would rather it was because I cared for you, because I loved you too. I want a family. Not _that_ -"

"_That_ is our life Rika. We have no choice but to follow it."

"Until it destroys you all? Until Akito becomes so warped by her fear that she ends up doing something unforgivable?"

"It won't come to that -," Rika laughed, the sound hollow to her own ears.

"It _already_ came to that. Look at Rin. At Kyo! You're all just going to let him be locked in that room and say nothing because it makes you feel better about yourselves. You're letting Shigure use Tohru as a tool. You let her ruin your eye when you could've fought back. You let her take Kana from you and...and - _you let her send me away!_" His mouth opened as if to counter her. As if to say something that might take back all the horrible things he had witnessed at the hands of Akito.

Unable to find the words, Hatori shook his head and turned away. Her guilt rose up quickly, an apology sitting just behind her teeth. It wouldn't come loose. She didn't want to be spiteful. She _didn't_.

"Sometimes I wish you two had been raised as sisters." He laughed hollowly. It was startling in its emptiness and as quickly as Rika's anger flared in his direction, it wilted. His face had closed off from her. Voice low. "Though I hate to imagine the pain you'd have caused. You both know how to slice a person to the bone."

"Hatori I -,"

"Sit still. I need to dress your wound."

_You both know how to slice a person to the bone._

He worked in silence as he added strips to her skin to seal it back together. Covered it with a bandage. Swallowing roughly when he stepped out to dispose of the bloodied water and cloth, Rika searched through her pocket to unearth the dragon. To reap comfort from it. She hadn't meant to accuse him again.

Rika, for all her steps towards growth, was just as wounded and terrified as Akito at times. Especially when it came to revealing her vulnerabilities. Just because it was easier with Hatori, had _always _been easier with him, didn't make it feel easy now. Standing, she followed him to the kitchen. This house was riddled with more memories than she could count but surprisingly, many of them were good. Hugs. Warmth. _Love_.

"Hari, I'm sorry." He stood at the sink. Back to her. Rika closed the divide between them and placed the little dragon on the countertop in his view. Slipped her hands around his waist and laid her cheek against the soft fabric of his waistcoat. She was pushing too far but she needed to be close to him. To feel grounded. "I say stupid things when I'm hurting. I know better than to say things that aren't true."

"No," She stiffened, heart an unsteady beat in her chest, "You're right."

Hatori turned into her embrace, curling his arms around her. His cheek rested against hers, and she tightened her arms. Knotted the waistcoat in her fingertips.

"I've been trying to give you space. Time." The whisper against her skin was warm. "I've hated every second of it."

This close she could feel his heart racing in tandem with her own. "I should've been talking you through all this, helping you. Rika, I swear I didn't know about your mother. About what she was doing. And if I could go back and fix it, I would. I should have fought _harder_."

"You did try. You defied Akito to give me that dragon."

"Don't applaud me for doing the minimum after the fact." She sighed, shaking her head at how defeated he sounded. He pressed his lips briefly to her temple. Such a simple action rooted her, swelling the air in the room with the million things she wanted to say to him. He got there first. "I'm sorry for being petulant with you. Shigure always said I had a rotten streak when I'm jealous."

"You're jealous? Of what?"

"Of the very idea that you never wanted me at all."

"Hari," Tilting her head back, Rika brushed hair from his face; it had gotten long again. Took a proper look at him. The shadows beneath his eyes spoke of broken sleep that mirrored her own, "_You_ were never negotiable. When I speak about rejecting the bond, I mean the obedience Akito craves. That tangled twisted _mimicry_ of love."

"It doesn't feel that way when you're inside it. It's not an excuse, but the bond is -"

"I know."

That was always going to be the catch. Trapped within the confines of the bond, it was easy to pretend those feelings were enough. That they could justify anything happening to them. Violence. Pain. Sorrow. All of it was bearable so long as they were connected to one another but where did that connection begin, and where did it end?

Hatori sighed. Dropped his forehead to hers.

"Kana never did. She never _could_." His hands tightened against the back of her shirt. To her surprise, she felt moisture against his cheek. The last time she'd seen him cry - "I wanted you to come back. I always _hoped_ you'd find a way back. It was selfish of me to want that. I've tried _not_ to want it. So that you might have a better life than this. You'd escaped it, what right did I have to bring you back into something that might hurt you like it's hurt so many of us? And still, I _hoped_. Rika, I -"

He didn't need to say it. How long had she been trying to deny this? She almost laughed at the absurdity of her own foolishness. Before her memories had come back, she'd known she loved him. Could feel it deep down in her marrow like an extra throbbing heartbeat. With her memories back, it didn't negate the bad. Nothing could do that. Somehow, it didn't take away the love either. Its form had shifted and changed over the years, from innocence to respect to desire but regardless, it had _always_ been him.

"I thought you'd hate me." Hatori tucked hair behind her ear but that didn't hide the tremble in his fingertips. "When you got your memories back, I thought it would change everything. I should never have taken them in the first place Rika. Never have agreed. I can't take any of it back now, but I want to. I wish I could. You're right, about things with Akito having gone too far but I've never been strong enough to say no. To do what you did today. Can _you_ live with that knowledge? Of my weaknesses?"

Stepping away, Rika took his hands into her own. Lifted them to her lips. Released him.

"At the lake house I was hurting, so I tried to hurt you too. I let Akito hurt _me_ because I believed my pain was better than someone else's. I made a deal to leave in blind faith that _I_ was the problem, without ever speaking about the circumstances of _why_. Without trying to find a better solution." It had been straightforward to blame other people for ignoring her plight back then, but she'd been just as complicit. Her mother hadn't listened, but had she ever told Hatori the details of her interactions with Akito? Had she gone to her father? There were a million ways that every choice could have been better.

Kazuma's reminder had been blunt, but it was also necessary to realign expectations. The Sohma family didn't work under normal conditions and rules. People followed the will of Akito and Ren to the letter, without stopped to properly think – _is this right_. Why wouldn't they? It was all they'd ever known. She, as much as it pained her, _had not_. Leaving had been brutal and painful and horrific, but it had also given her a world outside of the bubble. Sure, that bubble had been bound to burst eventually but having a taste had made her keep reaching for something better. Something _right_. Her mother had hated the outside world. Every single moment. It was easy to see it in hindsight. Her father had run from it. He'd been born outside the fold and had adapted easily but watching Rika and Kimiko falter couldn't have been easy. Could hardly have been comprehensible.

The Sohma's were people who believed in a code. A rulebook of propriety. If the dying Head of the family wanted to leave its power in the hands of a seven-year-old, then so be it. If _that_ Head was to make increasingly outlandish demands of her family, of her _Zodiac_, then _so be it_. The adults, all of them, had failed their children. They had created a system where a child who embodied an ostracised spirit could be locked away. A system where Akito could use and abuse her people because she believed that was her right. Where Hatori could be made to learn an impossible skill and use it to hurt the people he cared about under the guise of _goodness_. Hands forming fists, she exhaled hard through her nose. The doctor remained where he'd stood, watching her closely.

"Hari, doing something we think is right isn't weakness. Sometimes to do that thing is _impossibly_ hard. I left the people I loved, and _you_ have been sifting through memories at Akito's behest since you were what? – Seventeen? Earlier?! You had to take away _Kana's_. How you are as gentle and kind as you are is baffling to me. To do the things you've had to do, I'd have become someone cruel and wasted."

"I _have_."

"You've _not_. Hatori you are a complicated person who has been trying very hard to be good at every turn. Today," Rika protested as she walked an uneven path over the kitchen floor and looked back to him pointedly, "What did you feel _today_ when I said I didn't want you all? Besides jealousy?"

Hatori considered it. Shrugged.

"I don't know. Hurt? Abandonment, like you were going to leave again. _Sorrow_." Braced for it, Rika was able to carry the blow.

"Do you think cruel people would feel that? Do cruel people feel love? Do they go out of their way to drive two hours into the city just to take some snot nosed brat out for dinner?" He snorted. It diffused some of agitation she could read in his shoulders. The light outside had changed, turning the kitchen too bright in the process and drawing her eyes back to the little paper creature that had started this. "You brought me that dragon with your name and number tucked away inside. How hard must that have been? To come there and know I'd look through you? Not _know_ you."

Her mouth tightened as regret flooded through her. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to stop the tears in their tracks but it still showed in the rasp of her voice. "How could I not know _you_? How did I never open it?!"

"Hey," Hatori finally moved, pulling her to a standstill in the middle of the room. Swept hands over her hair and over the line of her jaw. Down to her shoulders so he could wrap her in another embrace. "We know each other now and I, for one, am so damn _proud_ of the person you have become in our time apart, and together."

They stood still for some time, Rika breathing the familiar scent of his shirt. Of his skin. He had always reminded her of the ocean. Saltwater and sand. Pressing her head closer to his chest, she could feel the sting in her cheek. The ache of blisters.

None of that mattered.

"Do you think," He murmured, "We'd have still found one another if your father hadn't moved you both back?"

Considering it, Rika wasn't sure. If they were normal people, then perhaps not. Except they weren't normal. Not in the usual sense. There were more factors to consider. A bond that kept drawing everyone back into each other's orbit no matter how much they protested or fought against it. She had seen that with Kyo, who fought with every fibre of his being yet still accepted his fate for that room. Of Yuki, who had fled the main house but still surrounded himself by Sohma's. She said as much to Hatori and he gave a small hum of agreement. Tucked his chin against her hair.

"I wonder sometimes, if that's why so many of us found love within the bond. Especially those hurt the most. We can understand one another in ways that people outside might not."

A host of butterflies were released into her stomach, each one scrambling for freedom. Rika glanced at the man through her lashes. He hadn't needed to say it but it still knocked the wind from her sails. Forming the word on her tongue, she tested it carefully.

"_Love_?"

"_Ah_," Hatori exhaled it in a groan as he leaned back into the line of the sink, releasing her to drag a hand through his hair, "I've overstepped."

"No," Rika followed, hands moving to cradle his face between her palms. Run the pad of her thumb over his lip. "No, Hari. _No_."

"No?"

"I love you." She paused to let the words settle out there on their own. To hang in the air with all the tassels they came laden with. Only, she wasn't quite done. Once the dam opened, it spilled out in waves. "I love you. I'm _in_ love with you. I've loved you since I was seven years old and didn't know what love truly was. Loved you when I was in Okinawa and I didn't know what how to define it, this _ache_ in my chest that meant every person I even considered always _paled_ in comparison to what I knew I could have. I've _been_ in love with you for so long now I can't even pinpoint where it began. With my head on your lap in that living room. When we kissed. When you encouraged me. Supported me. Or when you were just _you_."

She rose to the balls of her feet, nose pressing gently to his. Ghosting her lips against his in a kiss that never came. A year they'd agreed. Were they still playing that game?

"I have doubted and feared and _loathed_ this family but even when I want to hate you, all I feel when I think of you is _safe_." A flush began to rise over her skin as she realised, he hadn't said anything, allowing her to ramble on. "Please say something and stop me before I declare something entirely idiotic, would you?"

"I rather like seeing you flustered," Mouth twitching with a grin, Hatori rested his hands against her hips which only served to make her more embarrassed, "It's endearing."

"Oh, shut up." He laughed, tipping his head to hers. His gaze softened, the expression on his face enough to leave her dazed. Lips parting, she ran her tongue against them. Anticipation was a cruel mistress but it the rewards could be reaped in plenty. Especially if it included another kiss.

"I love you too."

Or that.

That was remarkably good too.

Rika smiled against his mouth, curling her hands around his neck to close the last few millimetres between them. To lose herself in the feel of him against her. A life of this she could adapt to quite well she thought, until she stopped thinking altogether, senses abandoning her. She was liquid. Spineless. Every nerve-ending responded when his fingertips twitched down her sides and she responded by kissing his neck. It drew a hissed exhale that made her grin widely, especially when the move granted her a shiver.

The phone ringing in the background inspired a groan, Hatori releasing her slowly. Hesitant.

"I have to get that." He murmured it between kisses and it took every ounce of power in her to agree. "It might be the main house." The words were an icy shower down her body and Rika released him from her grasp.

"Go," She quirked her mouth at his hesitation and found that there was truth as she said, "It's okay."

The time he was gone from the kitchen gave her a chance to gather herself. Legs shaky. Head spinning. Someday, his kisses would no longer leave her in such a state but for now she was going to revel in it. When Hatori returned she'd straightened her shirt. Splashed some water from the tap to cool her skin.

"I have to go. Will you be here when I get back?" He spoke it so cautiously that she wished nothing more than to bundle him back into her arms. To hold him and soothe away the doubt from his mind. Instead she gave him a gentle smile.

"I'm not going anywhere."


	35. Chapter 35

Late that night, Rika found herself curled up under the covers of Hatori's blankets with the man himself lying beside her. Her heart was a beating drum. A siren call. There was a new element to their interactions that came from being in his room. _His bed_. He'd found her a sleeping robe. A spare toothbrush. There was no expectation in the action of her taking a place in the bed beside him, merely just a longing to not lose sight of one another. After so much had happened, neither was willing to give up the other just yet.

"Hari," She murmured sleepily, one hand tucked beneath her head, "Was everything okay at the main house?"

"Just Shigure causing trouble." His voice was just as faint and she tucked her feet against his shins for warmth. Found little of it. "He's got a lovely bruise."

Sniggering filled the room, the sleep deprivation beginning to hit them both with gusto.

"I still can't believe you punched him." The laughter infectious, she had to work at stopping herself from giggling long enough to suggest she maybe out to apologise to the man.

"No. No he deserved it." That surprised her. "You know I don't condone violence. I'm a doctor, it goes against my ethos but _Shigure_ – he, well let's just say I warned him that someday it would be a possibility."

"He's certainly…" She searched for a word that could encompass Shigure Sohma but none came to mind that wouldn't get her told off for rude language. Hatori beat her to it.

"A shithead." Rika burst out laughing, smothering the sound with her palm. She'd long ago grown to adore Hatori's quiet properness but it was moments like this where he excelled. The snark that lived just beneath the surface waiting to breach. Another proclamation of love was on the tip of her tongue but was hastily swallowed down when Hatori began to speak again. "Rika, may I – can I explain something to you? Something that I should've done a long time ago."

When he saw her nod, the man took a steadying breath. Her teeth came down either side of her tongue to hold it in place. It may have been three in the morning but with the sudden shift of mood came knowledge that whatever he needed to say was important.

"I still have reservations. About how deserving I am of this after all I've done because for a very long time, I've opted to not feel anything. Neither guilt for wiping the memories that came before you nor pain at what this curse has meant for me. Shigure said to me once that the bond turned sour for me after Kana but it started long before that." The house was silent, the only noises filled by the soft breaths of the couple. "Once, Akito called me snow and so that's what I became. Cold. Detached. _Except_ with you, and then – then I had to take away all the parts of me that I had loved because of you and it was easier to feel nothing. After I met Kana, some of those pieces of me thawed. She was kind. She made me feel forgiven."

Rika swallowed harshly, what little light that filled the room revealing moisture in his eyes. She wanted to kiss away those tears. To tell him that he wasn't snow, or heartless or _cold_. Not when it came to the things that mattered. The reminder of Kana ought to have made her jealous but instead it was a comfort. To know someone had reached him when she couldn't have.

"I spent a long time afterwards idolising this _image_ of her. A long time convincing myself that there was nothing in my chest besides tissue and bone. Then _you_ walked through the door of Shigure's house and this little flicker of _hope_ started. I kept my distance at first and then your father…" Blowing out his cheeks, the man's hand lifted as if to cover his face. Rika snagged it on route and claimed it between her own. Startled by the movement, he faced her. The lines of his face softened.

"I want you to know I never felt like it was duty to look after you then. I did it because I couldn't bear the idea of you alone or leaving you when you were so broken. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the _snow_ I thought I was began to melt and I faltered. None of this has been easy, or simple, or straightforward and I have done a _million_ things wrong in how I've navigated this thing between us because I don't know _how_ to navigate it. Rika, I don't expect forgiveness from you for taking your memories but neither do I feel like that we have future together if we spend our time feeling guilt over past actions. Of course, what complicates things is the _bond_ -," He clucked his tongue, head shaking as if the words were lost. Rika's heart picked up pace when he turned to her. "I can't promise this will be the path most travelled, or that I will always make the right or obvious choices but if you let me – I would like to find my redemption by your side."

She rubbed at her eyes. Allowed his request time to breathe. Finally, more awake than ever, Rika curled her hand around his neck and found the space her fingers fit in the soft hairs. Details. It was the _details_ she loved. Of how they slotted together. Kyo might fit her rib to rib but Hatori was the little piece of her soul that had gone awry. With him, she felt rounded. _Whole_. He encouraged her to be better. Braver. She inspired him to _feel_. Pressing her lips to his nose, his closed eyes, his _mouth_, her thumb drew away the last of the moisture that lingered against his cheek.

"I can't imagine anything I'd love more than figuring it out with you."

/

She woke with a violent jolt. It had been her first night's sleep since the lake house that had been unbroken, a large component of which she suspected was Hatori's presence beside her. They'd slept nose to nose, having spoken until neither could keep their eyes open any longer. A thousand and one things still needed to be done but in the early light that poured through the gap in the curtains she allowed herself to examine how far they'd come.

A year ago, she'd only just met the man again. Was rediscovering what it meant to live in Tokyo. Have friends she trusted with more than the surface level emotions that lived within her. Arm tucked under her head, she wanted to bask in the perfection of the moment.

How their legs tangled, and their hands remained linked. The way his mouth slightly parted as he slept just as it had when they were kids. The utter sense of _calm_ he emanated even when he wasn't trying to. Hatori's heart had always been his greatest strength, no matter how frozen it had felt to him. In his arms, she had been content.

Until she'd woken.

Hand lifting to her chest, Rika tried to place the feeling. Something was amiss. _Wrong_. She slipped from the futon and grabbed her clothes along with an extra shirt of Hari's to dress in. Her own had fallen victim to the teriyaki chicken of the night before.

Downstairs, the feeling didn't ebb.

It wasn't quite pain, but more, a lack of it. A missing piece. She stepped out into the garden with a mug of coffee and a hope to catch her breath. To settle the strangeness. Instead she heard voices from the adjoining garden. Momiji she quickly recognised, and… _Akito_? Dampening down the old lick of panic in her veins, Rika waited until silence fell before squeezing her way between a gap in the shrubbery.

She couldn't have explained why it felt imperative to knock on Momiji's door until the moment he opened it and she realised. Her coffee mug slipped from her grasp, clattering to the floor and covering them both in hot water.

"Crap. Sorry!" She tried to dab at the spill with her socks until Momiji told her to stay put while he fetched a cloth. The mess cleared; the teen drew her towards the living room. Asked the maid to fetch them both some breakfast. Rika moved through the motions until they were alone, waiting until her own hands had stopped shaking long enough to reach forward.

Capture his face between her hands.

"Is it true?" She could feel it. The absence of him. It made her feel elated and terrified. "Momiji?"

"Did you come from Hari's this morning?" Colour flooded her cheeks, Rika nodding as the teen flicked his fingers gently against the collar of the shirt she wore. "Good. I'm glad he has you. We all need someone when this is done."

"Momiji..." The words wouldn't come. Fear was a pulsating rotten beast within her stomach. For months now when she had been in his presence, she felt an enormous sense of calm. Comfort. It wasn't quite gone per say, but now it was a dimmed candle. The flame still burned but only faintly. Too strong of a breeze and it might quaver and disappear.

"I haven't figured out how I feel yet Ri-Ri," He said finally, the look that crossed his face making her heart hurt, "Except lonely. I feel very lonely all of a sudden."

Breakfast arrived on two trays; Rika unable to stop the whimpering noise as it rose along her throat. The maid looked at her in alarm as she retreated but Momiji remained silent. Head bowed. Sad. He looked so _impossibly_ sad.

Was this what it would be like when all was said and done? Would the bond just vanish and take with it all the things that she held dear? The logical part of her mind said surely not, but logic wasn't at the table right then. What was there was the little space in her heart that had once been filled by the teen in front of her. She loved him still. She knew that much. It just felt muffled. Far away.

Momiji had been in her life since childhood, but he hadn't been the same as Kyo was to her. As Hari was. If, when, this happened for them how would she feel? How would _they_ feel? What would it mean? The night before she had been elated. Ready to start considering all the things that had been put on hold because of her memories. Because of university.

Now...

Now she was _terrified_.

Which likely paled in comparison to how Momiji was feeling.

She shifted in her seat to pull the teen into her arms. To tuck his head below her chin. Murmuring soft promises that she was still there. That she always would be. He wept against her, body shaking with a million things unsaid but the most potent one of all hung between them like a blade from the sky.

What _now_?

/

After Momiji left for school Rika returned to the adjoining house and found Hatori standing at the kitchen counter. Her mug, splattered with the remains of her coffee, was left into the sink. It was the first time she regretted her graduation. The fact that she couldn't take the boy's hand in her own and walk beside him that day or check in on him between classes only heightened her misery.

"I thought you'd left." He frowned, the disapproval only lifting when he looked at her properly. "Is that my shirt?" Swiftly followed by, "Wait, have you been crying?"

Moving to her side his expression turned to outright concern as Rika tried to swallow down the roaring confusion in her head. Dropping her head against his shoulder, the woman felt defeated. What good was acknowledging that she loved any of these people if some day it was going to vanish into the ether. She felt like an idiot, crying in front of him again but try as she might to stop, the tears kept coming.

The sobs weren't loud, roaring things. They were pitiful gasping breaths that worked their way up from deep in her chest. Burned her _eyes_. Her _throat_. Her _lips_. What she felt was grief. Inconsolable, _uncontrollable_ grief. It was like mourning all over again. It hadn't hurt this much when she'd lost her mother. Not at first. At first, she'd only been angry. Spiteful. Refusing to return to school, to eat. To _live_. So much of it had been guilt. For not fighting her father more when she'd noticed the symptoms. For the unnamed beast in her gut that existed whether she wished it to or not. Reliving it after her father's death hadn't made it any easier. It was simply a different wound.

This wound was different again. A loss she hadn't even _known_ she could feel. Worse was the unfairness of it all. Momiji had lost his mother. His sister. All because of the curse. Now it was gone and what was he to do? There was no way for Hatori to restore those memories without causing someone pain in the process. Which left a teen, arguably one of the kindest she had ever been blessed with knowing, looking down a chasm of inexplicable loneliness.

When there were no more tears to be spilled, she was frogmarched into the living room, Hatori ordering her to sit while he left to get tea. The few moments alone allowed her to pull herself together. Wipe away the tears. Hatori's return brought with him a new set of bandages for her cheek and a fresh shirt. He crouched in front of her, hands rested on his thighs.

"Do you want me to call Kyo?"

Rika shook her head, bowing her forehead to his arm. Kyo here would only make matters worse. Would knowing the bond had weakened help or hinder him, she wondered. With the bond broken, he'd be free but how _long_ until it happened? How much more _pain_ would he have to endure. Which was worse. The hope? Or the fear that it might not come true? Hatori's palm grazed the top of her head, tension written into his fingertips. "Rika, what can I do to help?"

He tilted her head back to him with the side of his index finger. She couldn't hold his gaze. Fear held her in its grasp but locking herself down would achieve nothing. _Fix_ nothing. Hiding was what had gotten them into such a complicated mess in the first instance.

"Hari." Her voice sounded strained to her own ears. Raspy. "What happens to us when the bond breaks."

He leaned back on his haunches, running a hand over his face.

"_If_ it breaks."

"_When_." She countered quickly. "That's why I'm here right? A fracture in the spirit. A divide. I've weakened it somehow."

"We don't know that." She scoffed, leaning an elbow on the table beside her for support. The man's agitation was growing to match her own. "What's brought this on?"

She didn't know how to tell him.

Instead, she spat out the doubt that had been lingering at the back of her mind.

"What happens if we choose each other and five…ten…_twenty_ years from now we wake up and the thing that bound us is gone?" All that time doubting. Worrying. _Waiting_. Could they carry that spirit without it eating up everything that had drawn them together in the first place? It was one thing to seek redemption together, within one another. It was _another_ to always carry the burden of the curse.

"Rika…"

"Don't say I'm being irrational. I _know_ that love is a choice. I've chosen to love Tohru and the others. Chosen to be a Sohma. But at seven I _also_ chose to be Akito's whipping girl. A normal person doesn't make that choice Hari. Not without doubting it and when the doubt and blame came to be saddled, I pointed it at _myself_." She pulled air in sharply, through her teeth. "I know better now because I've been out of the circle of lunacy. Away from _Akito_. Except how I feel about you, about Kyo, about the others – that's still the same so I'm asking you – _what happens when the bond is gone?"_

He curled his fist beneath his own chin, hand then flattening to curl around his neck. She could feel his discomfort, the sensation as palpable than her own.

"I don't know." Hatori answered finally. "I wish I had an answer, but I don't."

"I _want_ to choose us Hari." Rika swallowed roughly. "I want to imagine our lives creeping out ahead of us with lazy mornings and furniture shopping. Holidays and nights together beneath the covers. I want to think about our kids and you and I, hand in hand, when we're finally old and grey." Tears had welled again and Rika brushed at them roughly. "But every time I do, I can't help but think of how every little piece falls apart if all that brought us together was the bond. If it's _all_ that is making me love you like that."

_If it falls apart, what's left? _

"If it breaks, it won't be like slowly falling out of love. It'll be instant and I don't know if I can _bear_ the idea of waking up some day to find you looking at me like you never loved me at all."

"Then what do we do?" His voice was soft. Strained. Rika didn't have the solution. Didn't know where to start. When she lifted her shoulders in a hesitant shrug, Hatori dropped down beside her, the man grabbed the supplies he'd brought earlier. Asked her to sit still while he fixed on the new bandage.

Terse silence filled the air between them, swelling until her spine was too rigid and Hatori's expression had closed down. She hated that. Seeing how far away he was while still so close. Rika excused herself to change her shirt. Deposited the old one into the laundry. Examining her face in the mirror revealed red rimmed puffy eyes. Rika leaned over the small sink; her knuckles turned white against the porcelain. A solution.

That's what they needed.

Why did it seem to be so damn far away?

Returning to the living room, Hatori had poured tea. Handed her a cup.

"Previously," He patted the space beside him and she lowered herself cross legged to the floor, "We agreed upon a year before. Time for you to figure out what you wanted, for us to find equal footing."

Rika swallowed, leaving her cup back to the table.

"We did. Are you suggesting what I think you are?" A nod.

"We renegotiate that. A year. No slip ups or…"

"Flirting." Rika finished for him, mouth tight. It hurt to think it, but it was an answer that made sense. A year felt impossibly long, but it was also feasible that the bond would crumble further within that time. That before too long they might have an answer to this unsolvable problem. "And our friendship? Can we keep that?"

"You think I'd give that up?" He seemed hurt by the insinuation and Rika reached out to claim his hands. Squeezed his fingers between her own in tandem to the constriction of her heart.

"No." Her smile was wry. "I don't think I could give it up either."

"So for now, we remain friends."

Rika closed her eyes, hating every second of this. Hating the _doubt_. Except it had been there from the moment she'd learned about the bond and asked him if he had to do what she said. When Momiji implied that he couldn't say no to her. Rika had already seen how detrimental the curse could be on her own life, of how isolating it could be even when surrounded by thirteen zodiac and a god. Was it success then, to acknowledge it and find a way around it? Or loss, to give up on the very thing that set her nerves alight and made her feel at home just in case – _someday_ – it would all disappear?

When she opened her eyes, the woman forced the agreement past the frog in her throat.

"Friends."

/

"Do you remember the first time I transformed in front of you?" Rika's laughter was sudden, vibrant, hands reaching to cover her face.

"Oh no, please don't." She could recall it all vividly now. The cold that had struck during one of her extended stays in Hatori's clinic as a child. Or rather, his father's clinic then. She had been at most seven, and Hatori in his early teens but it had been during a fever the man had had. Unlike the panic Kana and Tohru had shared (that Hatori had told her of earlier with just the faintest traces of amusement), Rika had held a more pragmatic approach. She'd simply picked up the little seahorse and deposited him into the fish tank. Which had worked out spectacularly until he had changed back, and she'd found herself staring at a naked, soaked and very fishy smelling teenage boy amidst a collection of broken glass and writhing fish.

His father's face when he'd come to investigate the noise had probably been one of the scarier moments of her life. After that, there'd never been another fish tank in the house.

He was laughing at her embarrassment, the action soothing some of the still lingering ache in her chest. Hatori had insisted she stay the night again to check on her various lingering injuries from the lake house. Truth be told, most of the bumps and scrapes picked up in the forest were beginning to fade but Rika knew it wasn't her physical self that had the man so on edge. No, it was the wretched weeping she'd done that morning that had unnerved him. The fragile state of her mind.

She could see the concern in the twitch of his mouth. The early lines that framed his eyes. Truth be told, she wasn't quite sure how she was meant to be acting. Things had felt more stable the day before when the bond had been easy to write off as a superfluous thing. It was just background noise. Losing the connection to Momiji had thrown her off kilter. Made things starker. More jarring.

Sitting in his office, Rika had pulled her legs below her chin, the man himself leaning back almost comfortably in his chair. He'd started off doing paperwork but as her boredom had grown (and all the various jobs and cooking she'd done to fill the time dwindled away), Rika had sought him out and distracted him.

Not that he seemed wholly averse to the distraction. She found she liked that too.

"My mom," She said after they had sat in companionable silence for a while, "What was she like when you knew her? Besides the -" Her hand waved, trying to encompass the details she'd been sifting through since getting her memories back. The darker side to Kimiko that had been masked and confused by their departure to Okinawa.

Hatori sat up straighter, mouth disappearing into a straight tight line. The last few months had shown her how to read the man better than she had ever managed as a child, and rather than try to take back the question she simply waited for him to decide how he was going to answer it.

"She was kind. Impossibly so, just like Akira was." There as a shift in his expression, something that might have alarm at dredging up that memory but Rika's attention was focused on his words alone. Akira was a topic she still struggled with, even with the truth now unlocked in her mind. He'd been her uncle. Sweet. Giving. Just as damn complicit in all this hell by not leaving her mother a means to survive in the wake of his death. "She used to bring chocolates back from every trip she took to the store for Ayame, Shigure and I. Even when we'd become teenagers and it was no longer a quaint thing, she did it all the same. As children she used to read to us in the main house."

A pause. Another consideration.

"Sometimes I think Shigure became an author because of her. The way she spun and weaved the tales was as though she was creating worlds before our very eyes. I've never told him, but those silly little novels of his that he writes on the side always reminded me of you both. There was something, _comforting_, in his prose within them. In how the tales are structured. I never noticed it until he made me read the first one.

"Kimi used to tell us that the Sohma curse was just a bump on the way to our futures, that we couldn't let it hold us back. Of course, that was all rather easy to say when we had the money to do whatever we wish with our lives but sometimes it was hard for us to see past what the curse's effects did. How it impacted things like intimacy or connection." Something that had been even worse as Ren's constant abuses of Akito had driven their god to possession over them all, pushing away anything that threatened the status quo. Hatori didn't say this, knowing that forgiveness wasn't yet in Rika's heart and she appreciated it. He wasn't going to force her to resolve all issues with Akito just yet.

"It was easy to forget she wasn't one of us, but then - she had grown up with the curse already. Your grandfather had been the tiger, and while it was rare for families to share their condition across generations, after your grandmother passed away, it had been inevitable for him to have to tell her." Rika's hands had migrated to hook beneath her legs, holding her knees to her chest. Each new nugget of information was another key to a lock she hadn't realised she held, allowing her to shift through memories that were familiar but distant.

"I miss her. I miss them both." Rika's voice was quiet and when she looked up, she saw Hatori moving towards her. He dropped a hand over her shoulder, crouched so they were at eye level. It was dangerous, this connection. She knew it. Yet, even with their agreement, the instinct was there to allow herself to be held close and inhale the familiarity of his skin. Her head dropped against his chest and she felt a sigh from deep within his lungs. Rika had a flash of a fragmented memory, the feeling of his hands curled into her hair. His mouth on her neck.

_Just this_. _It's all I want_.

Her grip tightened as she tried to fend it off and he seemed to take it as grief and an opening to ensnare her within his arms, whispering against her ear.

"I do too."

After a long beat, she pulled back.

"Hari, I'm afraid." He lowered himself onto the table, sitting opposite. "Of this."

"Of which part?"

"Loving you this way. Knowing it could end just like this." She snapped her fingers, the sound making her flinch.

"Me too." Hearing him admit it soothed the agony in her chest another fraction, but not enough to make any of it bearable. "I'm terrified."

Swallowing hard, she took his hands into her own. Ran her thumbs over the lines of his palms. After her memories came back, Rika had been fuelled by anger. Hurt. Often it was difficult to see the truth through emotions like that but she was glad she had. Trouble was, it wasn't just human emotion that connected them. Which left them an almost impossible choice.

They'd agreed on a year once before making a move, choosing to puzzle out their feelings piece by piece. Except what if a year wouldn't get to the root of the problem. Was what they felt created by trust and honesty and love? Or did it only exist because of the bond.

What if they made the decision to try and then ten, fifteen years from now the bond shattered and suddenly nothing existed. Would that be fifteen years of wasted time? Could they even come _back_ from that? Her heart ached at the idea of it. Love, at its core, was a choice rather than a feeling. The decision to keep coming back to one another time and time again. It was leaving the doorway memory of origami in her mind when picking away the rest and offering a dragon as the key. It was her turning to him for each study session, for each hurdle knowing he would be the one most likely to offer her truth. It was even the coffee she left on his desk as he worked through his files.

Love, _this love_, felt infallible in its human form but what would happen the day that the spiritual side of it broke? Would he look at her and have regrets? Worse than hatred would be to see emptiness. Nothing. The right thing to do would be to leave. To stop cycling through her endless collections of panic and fears. Instead a soft keen left her throat.

"I'm so very in love with you." Rika's voice broke. "How do I live with that and the bond? How do we pursue this knowing it might all be a lie? That someday, soon, it'll break and then we won't feel these things anymore? How do we live with that?" Hatori met her eyes, expression tortured. He reached forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. Sniffled.

"I think, we simply have to give it time."


	36. Chapter 36

**One Year Later...**

Rika shoved her books away from her, leaning back into her chair to stare at the ceiling. She felt like she'd been studying for days and getting nowhere, her little apartment scattered with neon sticky notes and discarded mugs in preparation for exams. Having matriculated in Autumn had done little to lift the workload, but neither did spending all her free time travelling back and forth to see Kyo and the others either. Not that Rika was going to complain. She'd worked too hard to get here.

Standing upright, the woman stretched out. Felt her spine realign itself with a _click_ and the tension seep from her shoulders.

"Tea." She murmured to herself. "I'll make tea."

The little apartment was hardly more than a living space with a bed, bathroom and adjoining kitchen. Her inheritance from both her parent's life insurance had come through the previous summer and then she'd also discovered the stipend. Paid monthly. Directly from the Sohma funds. Akira had set it up for her mother and it had passed to Rika. Like it or not, she was _wealthy_. More than she reasonably knew what to do with it all.

Buying the flat had been her first indulgence. A place of her own while she studied.

A new cell phone sat on the little island that divided living space and kitchen, flashing bright to tell her she had a text from Uotani. Ignoring it for now, Rika padded to the sink and filled up her kettle. Placed it on the stove to heat. She'd found her own routines little by little. Learning to live with herself. To trust her own gut. Her heart. Standing holding her empty mug, the woman jumped at the bell on her door. Eyes flickered to the calendar on the wall. No one was due to visit her today.

Figuring it could be one of the neighbours complaining about the folks on the floor above again, Rika left her mug down on the island. Undid the bolts.

The woman on the other side of the doorway was so unexpected that Rika took an instinctive step back.

"Wait, don't close me out!" Akito's hands were flung upright, hesitant. "Please."

"Why are you _here_." She didn't ask how the other woman had found her. A darting look to the car lot beside her building revealed that quick enough, the familiar vehicle sitting idle in her personal spot.

"Hatori drove me. I asked him not to tell you. To give me a chance to speak to you alone and I - I was afraid if he warned you and you said no -,"

"That he'd listen?"

Akito nodded. Rika felt a flare of pride for the doctor. Finally, _finally_, he'd grown enough of a noticeable backbone that Akito hadn't known where his loyalties would lie. It was petty to dwell on such a detail but she was feeling vulnerable. Off guard.

"You can call him up - if you wish him to be here while I talk. If you'd feel safer." Rika stood back, pulling the door wider.

"I can handle you." Akito didn't dare argue, stepping in after her. Rika's heart was heavy in her chest. Conflicted. Closing the door behind Akito took more strength than she'd have thought, the very idea of locking the two of them together almost enough to turn her blood cold. Instead of letting that old fear prevail, Rika exhaled.

"Tea?"

"Yes, please."

"You can sit down wherever. I'll be a minute." Putting space between them allowed Rika to return to the kitchen. To type out a hasty message to Hatori that consisted of -

'_You're going to explain what the hell you were thinking_."

She flinched when the water hit boiling, the kettle singing until she removed it from the heat. Poured out two cups for them both. Found a plate and some desserts that Momiji had dropped by over the weekend for her. She found Akito still standing, studying the door of Rika's closet. The sliding panel was filled with photographs from top to bottom, an endless marking of history. Shigure had returned the effects of her mother when Rika was moving out, but it wasn't just her childhood there. Beach House visits. The New Year's celebration they'd gone out to dinner for.

"They always loved you so easily." Akito's voice made her jump, tea sloshing over the edge of the mug and drawing a coarse swear from Rika's lips.

"I never asked them to."

"I know. I think that's why they did it." Akito turned and took the tea Rika offered her. Indicated one photograph in particular. "That was your leaving night wasn't it? I remember Saki telling me about it."

The image wasn't the prettiest, Rika's expression caught in the midst of tears. Tohru, Hana and Uo were all wrapped around her but that wasn't her favourite part. It was that Shigure, in snapping the image, had also caught Kyo in the background. Expression soft. Sad. _Hopeful_. It was after the last banquet. After Akito embraced being a woman. A leader. _Alone_.

Rika hated that she was still so torn about this woman. Her cousin. Her almost sister. There were photos of them both tucked away at the back of her desk. Memories from a time long before Akito had been poisoned from within. Before Rika could only associate the other woman with fear and regret. With university had been counselling services and a _lot_ of billable hours. Weekly catch up calls with Rin had done wonders too. An outlet to feel angry. Betrayed. To sift through years of abuses and pain. Acknowledge that even if she didn't have the capacity to outright forgive the past, she could slowly move on from it.

"It was." She finally answered, realising Akito was waiting for an answer of some kind. Was she looking for some kind of apology for not inviting her? Or was it simply a passing comment. Rika's mind ticked back a moment as she realised that it had been _Hana_ that had shared that story. Kyo had told her of the burgeoning relationship between the two but somehow Rika had missed it. Or maybe she'd been too stubborn to accept others being willing to just forgive Akito after everything that had happened. Uo and Hana had put Kyo through his paces when he'd started dating Tohru but welcomed Akito with open arms. Hugged her. Comforted her.

It shouldn't have bothered her.

It _shouldn't_.

_It did_.

"Rika." Akito looked smaller than she had when they were kids. Now, Rika looked down at her. Now, Rika wasn't afraid. Her eyes flickered away, the visual too difficult to reconcile. "I wanted to come here today because -

"Before Tohru's accident," Rika stiffened at the memory, looking back at the dark-haired woman. She found her head downcast. A bow, "She offered me friendship. Generosity. She gave me an opportunity to become better and cherish all of the Zodiac. To learn how to be more than a God."

Rika could see the strain in Akito's body. The trembling hands. Tension. Her own eyes were burning with something unnamed, hands only stopped from hanging useless at her sides by the mug she was still holding.

"She forgave me. For everyone. It wasn't her right, but it was something I needed to hear to learn how to try." Akito's voice trembled. "You tried to give me that too. In your own way. I just wasn't ready for it." Akito stood upright so suddenly that Rika flinched away from it but all that was there was an outstretched hand. "If you'll allow it - I would like to introduce myself to you.

As Akito Sohma. Head of the Sohma family and _sister_ to Rika Sohma. I don't expect you to forgive me or forget, but maybe someday it could be true. Sisters don't have to tolerate one another. Don't have to obey one another. It's as good a place to start as any and then someday, we could be friends again too?"

Rika blinked.

Set down her mug.

Instinct was to tell this woman to get the hell out of her house. To never darken her doorstep again. Rika had spent a year sneaking in and out of the Sohma estate without crossing her path, what was a lifetime of it? Especially with everyone she loved stepping away from the place. The only ones she wanted to see who couldn't come to her at a whim yet were Kisa and Momiji but that was fast coming to an end too. It would be easy. To cut Akito from her life. Excise the tumour. Her blood hummed with the potential of it.

As loud as the song was, another began to rise.

Akito's words had finally struck her. As a _sister_. A publicly claimed sister. A legitimate part of the family. Something her mother had always wanted. _Craved_. How was she to deny that? Would choosing the easy path be right when her own mother decided to haunt her for throwing away this opportunity. Rika had always come back to the knowledge that she _wanted_ to be a Sohma. What was being offered was more power than she would know what to do with. Power to actually _change_ the system. The need for it to be true, to be_ real_, was almost too much to bear. It grew and expanded through her stomach, her ribs, her toes. Filled up every trace of available space it found.

"What -," Her voice failed. She started again. "What duties would I have to fulfil?"

It was Akito's turn to look shocked. Rika revelled in the knowledge that she wasn't the only out of her depth here. The only one filled with discomfort.

"The occasional board meeting, of which you will have just as much say as I do in decisions, once you've been brought to speed on how things are run. Attendance at dinners. Celebrations. Those will be optional until you are ready but a place will always be there for you beside mine. Documentation is already being changed to reflect you as the other legitimate heir to the family in the event of illness or my stepping down."

There was a lack of oxygen in the room. Rika turned away to put down her mug before she dropped it mid faint, breathing uneven. Her forefinger and thumb pinched against the skin inside her wrist. Pain shot along her palm. She hadn't imagined it. This was real. _This was real_.

"Rika I cannot change the past. I can't take back how I blinded Hatori. The things I said and did to the other Zodiac's. _To you_." Akito's voice was clogged with moisture but Rika was too stunned to do anything but stare at her. "I can't prostrate myself before you and claim abuse, innocence or ignorance.

"What I _can_ do is make a change. A small bit at a time. If you would like to be part of that change, then I would be honoured to call you my sister."

It didn't matter that they weren't sisters by blood. They were first cousins. It had been their parents who were siblings, though that had never been public knowledge. For Akito to risk the Sohma name to claim her as a sister was astronomically huge. That didn't stop Rika wanting it. To have a place to orientate herself with. A means to bring her mother's memory peace. To set her father to rest with the knowledge that all the things he had feared for her wouldn't come to pass. She wouldn't spend her days alone. Broken.

Minutes passed. Akito stood rooted, unmoving. Finally, Rika lifted a hand.

"Hello," She managed to get the words out somehow, even tacking a careful smile onto them, "My name is Rika. _Sohma_. _Rika Sohma_. It's nice to meet you."

It felt silly but the look on Akito's face was worth it. The hand was claimed. Smile returned.

"Rika, it's a pleasure. I hope, someday, we will have many years of friendship together."

* * *

Akito had been gone ten minutes when another knock sounded on her door. Rika had been staring into space, unable to focus on anything but the blood rushing through her ears. Stumbling to the door she passed the two cups of now icy tea. Neither woman had been able to drink it. Some things were too much for a first reintroduction. In time, perhaps they _would_ be able to share tea together. To talk without stilted hesitation and old history controlling the direction of the conversation.

Pulling the door back revealed a sheepish looking Hatori.

"I called a driver for Akito. She agreed that maybe you could use company this evening." He lifted a carrier bag that made a suspicious _clink_ as it moved. "And maybe a means to unwind."

Rika stared the man down. Looked from his face to the bag and back again.

"And what makes you think I _wanted _to see you."

A vindictive part of her wanted him to suffer for not giving her forewarning for today's visit. To put him through his paces. Hatori rolled his eyes and stepped into the narrow space she'd left in the doorway. Bowed his head so that his mouth ghosted over hers. He'd had too much time to know when she was talking crap.

"A partners intuition?"

Rika scowled but leaned up to close the small gap between them. Slid a hand around his shoulders to pull him after her into the room. Kicked at the door with the ball of her foot. Hatori moved willingly, blindly switching his carrier bag from right hand to left hand around her back and depositing it to the island. He pulled her so deeply into his embrace that her feet almost left the floor, her head curling to the crook of his neck. It hadn't been an easy path to here. To intimacy and the familiarity of him. Skin chilled from the evening air. His heart beating in tandem with hers.

* * *

_Sorting through files at Hatori's desk, Rika attempted to pick out the apartment that was most suitable for her needs. Some were too big. Some too small. Too far from the university. Too far from home. The man himself was gone to the main house to check on one of the maids who'd happened to slice her hand open with a kitchen knife a few days previous. _

_The closer it got to her departure; the more tense Rika got. Nerves were alight in her stomach. For leaving. For the impending separation from all the people she knew and held dear to her. She and Hatori had remained close, his assistance invaluable with her admissions procedures. With where to look for accommodation. With getting her installed as a trainee at a local clinic so she could build skills before she even got to her degree. Loneliness was a painful emotion to contend with and even being just over two hours commute from the estate heightened the ravenous terror. _

_She wasn't alone anymore. Not really._

_It didn't make leaving any easier. _

_Kyo would come to terms with her leaving once he and Tohru had struck up their relationship. Kisa and Hiro had cleared the air. Rin and Haru. Meanwhile, Rika had...complications. Her gaze darted to the clock nearby. Tohru would be released from the hospital soon. This evening, they would all be back home in Shigure's, causing havoc and filling Rika's heart with an aching sense of impending doom. _

_A key clicked in the door and she heard Hatori call her name. _

"_In here!" Picking up her glass of water, she heard the slide of the door onto the porch and started to meet him there. Only to stagger. There was a shatter against the floor but all Rika could hear was feel was a sharp twang of a snapping band from deep within her. It started deep and reverberated through every muscle. Bone. Cell. _

_An inhale brought pain. _

_Her exhale released it. _

_Hand braced against the door; Rika gave a shaky sob. The bond. The bond was gone. A spectre floated in her vision for a moment. Twelve animals. A god. What it left was a heavy absence. Angling herself to the porch by stepping over the broken glass, Rika saw Hatori. She felt off kilter. Shaken. Kyo was gone. Kisa. Yuki. Akito. Akito was gone._

_Hatori. _

_He was stock still on the porch, a hand lifted to his face. She didn't need to see his face to see the tears. They were mirrored on her own. _

"_Hari…"_

_The man looked up. The look he directed at her was an arrow loosed from its bow, burying itself right through her heart. _

"_You're still here." He didn't mean in his house. His hand pressed itself to his chest, fingers spasming against the fabric of his shirt. "You're still here." _

_She dove into his embrace, pressing her mouth to his without even stopping to think it through. Between breaths she whispered to him._

"_I love you. Oh hell, I love youIloveyouIloveyou." He echoed it and the pair crumbled down to their knees, Rika torn between weeping and laughter. _

* * *

Leaning against the countertop, Rika handed Hatori a fresh bowl of rice and laid the remainder of their dinner on the island.

"Did she tell you why she was coming over?"

Hatori shook his head as shoved a glass of whiskey in her direction while Rika moved to her stool beside the island, knees bumping his.

"She wants to officially name me as a Sohma. Give me a place on the family board." He nearly dropped his chopsticks, turning to her with wide eyes. "She's going to send the papers with you next weekend for me to sign."

"Rika - this - this is _huge_!" He dropped a hand on her knee. Bent his head to meet her eyes. "How do you feel about it?"

She laughed faintly, tugging the whiskey towards her and feeling the bevel of the glass beneath her fingertips. Lifting the drink, the woman knocked it back quickly. By far the most inappropriate way to drink it but she needed something to steady her nerves.

"I feel overwhelmed. This is something new Hatori. A change." She and Akito had spoken after they had shaken hands. Not anywhere like how they used to do, heads bowed on the same pillows and fingers intertwined. A friendship, a sisterhood like that, could never be recovered. But from its embers, a new fire could be lit. Perhaps smaller. Maybe a little less bright. A fire all the same.

They'd planned a meeting. A further conversation.

Rika would never forget the abuse. The fighting. The six years she had spent far from the people she loved because of someone else's spite and an invisible duty to an unforgiving god. Tohru had offered forgiveness in her place a year ago. Rika had taken the time to evaluate where her place was within the Sohma household. What she wanted from it. What she might be willing to give to gain it.

Most parts were difficult.

How to forgive Akito. How to be a Sohma and not sacrifice the parts of her that were her father. How to keep in contact with Kyo and Tohru when they would leave so that she'd never have to lose her best friend again. To gain Hiro's still elusive forgiveness. To keep fostering her growing friendship with Rin. Balancing the classes she taught at the dojo while visiting Kazuma.

And then...

Some parts were simple.

Hatori. She wanted him. _Loved_ him. He was as essential to her as breathing. As the electricity that made her heart beat. The ocean as it washed over her feet on the shore and the smell of saltwater in the air. The way his smiles left her reeling. His kisses made her head spin. The bond may have started their connection once upon a time, but it hadn't been the bricks and mortar of who they had become. Time. Energy. Devotion. Those had made them. Would continue to make them.

Hatori dished out two more measures of whiskey and tipped his to hers.

"To something new." She smiled. Leaned forward to press her lips to his gently and then downed her second drink in one. Later, she'd make a quip about him getting her drunk again. Later, there would be room for laughter and relief. Right now, she couldn't take her eyes off of him as she repeated his toast.

"_To something new_."


End file.
